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FORCES IN FOREIGN 
MISSIONS 


WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE FOREIGN 
MISSIONS OF THE UNITED LUTHERAN 
CHURCH IN AMERICA 


BY 
GEORGE DRACH, D.D. 


GENERAL SECRETARY OF THE BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 
OF THE UNITED LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA 


rf 
The second of a series of “Key Books,” prepared under the general 
editorship of the Rev. F. H. Knubel, D.D., LL.D., and the 
Rev. M. G. G. Sherer, D.D. 





THE UNITED LUTHERAN PUBLICATION HOUSE 
PHILADELPHIA, PA, 
1925 


Copyricut, 1925; By 


Tue BoarpD OF PUBLICATION OF 


THe Unitep LutHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA 





MaprE IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


INTRODUCTION 


The Board of Foreign Missions heartily welcomes 
the publication of “Forces in Foreign Missions” so 
ably presented by Secretary Drach. As a survey of 
our mission fields and the forces at work both at 
home and abroad, this volume is timely and must 
prove of exceptional value. 

Great statesmen who have to do with the mighty 
problems of world peace and national safety are now 
saying that the gospel alone can heal the world’s 
hurt, bind up the wounds of war and make it safe 
to go forward. 

Aggressive steps are opportune. The readiness of 
the non-Christian world and the welcome that the 
gospel is receiving encourages the Church to press on. 
The word that comes from the great mission fields 
never was more encouraging to the Church at home 
nor to the missionaries on the field. 

The study of the Forces of Foreign Missions as 
presented in the following pages will awaken deeper 
interest and inspire larger confidence in both method 
and program of the great work that is being done in 
non-Christian lands. The plenteous harvest calls for 
more laborers and the vast needs and opportunities 
call for more prayer and sacrificial giving. 


EZRA K. BELL. 


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FOREWORD 


After Rev. C. Theodore Benze, D.D., Professor of 
Old Testament and Missions in the Lutheran Theo- 
logical Seminary, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, had left 
America to serve as European Commissioner of the 
National Lutheran Council, the faculty filled the gap 
in regard to Missions during the second semester of 
1928, by a course of lectures on “Forces in Foreign 
Missions.”” 'The manuscript of these lectures was sub- 
mitted to the United Lutheran Publication House, 
which advised that they be rearranged and rewritten 
so as to make a mission study book. This was done 
- by the author. The revised manuscript received the 
following endorsement of the Board of Foreign 
Missions: | 


“It was voted that Dr. Drach’s manuscript on 
“Forces In Foreign Missions,” as revised, be 
recommended to the United Lutheran Publication 
House as the official foreign mission study book 
in the contemplated series of study books to be 
published in the near future on the United Luth- 
eran Church in America and its major activities.” 


In the preparation of the manuscript the author 
acknowledges indebtedness to mission study books of 
the Student Volunteer Movement and of the Mission- 
ary Education Movement, pamphlets of the Commit- 
tee on Missionary Preparation, Dr. Gustav Warneck’s 

5 


6 FOREWORD 


‘“Missionslehre,” and Dr. Julius Richter’s ‘‘Missions- 
kunde.”’ 

Although written with the foreign mission enter- 
prise of the United Lutheran Church in mind, the 
thought of the author has been to make this book 
helpful to students of foreign missions in other 
Churches. 

For the statements of fact and opinion in this book 
the author alone is responsible, but in the main he 
states the position of the Board of Foreign Missions 
which he serves as one of its general secretaries. 

May the publication of this book help to strengthen 
and increase the foreign mission forces of the Luth- 


eran Church in the world. 
G. D. 


CONTENTS 
FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


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The Teaching of Jesus Christ Concerning Foreign 
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Christ’s Missionary Sermons and Sayin@s............c06 
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The Religions of India.................... 


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Un-Christian Lives and Principles in Opposition...... 
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A General Survey of our Foreign Fields.................... 
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8 CONTENTS 


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VI. ORGANIZED FORCES AT HOME.................. Roteoee 
Board (OL Wore er wi WesiOn Bi ctrccesttaseseedustes cect cceevisinnintaeee 

The Board of Foreign Missions of the United 
Lutheran Church in AM6€rica................ccccccccsssseess 

Phe: Homan Church rarsscaiiieiss/ tis taepenvanscstatcuses cena 


MIT VINTERNATIONAGL PORCHES is. tiusterstestierecesscosteccttts 
SUGGESTED BOOKS FOR AUXILIARY READING...... 


SUGGESTIONS TO LEADERS OF STUDY CLASSES 
USING “FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS”... 


Forces in Foreign Missions 


CHAPTER I 
DIVINE FORCES 


Christianity is a missionary religion because the 
Bible is a missionary book. The Bible is a missionary 
book, first, because it is the record of the missionary 
preaching of the authors of the Sacred Scriptures or 
their contemporaries. This statement is true of the 
New Testament, but it also applies to many parts of 
the Old Testament, specifically to the Psalms and cer- 
tain books of the prophets. 

In the second place the Bible is a missionary book 
because it inculcates missionary effort as an essential 
activity of true religion. It has been said that there 
is a missionary thought on every page of the Bible. 
That is hardly the case, and yet there is much more 
about missions in the Old as well as the New Testa- 
ment, than superficial readers and students of the 
Bible surmise. 

The foundation stones of Christian missions were 
laid by God in the Old Testament. In order to find 
them we must first remove the accumulated mass of 
Jewish ceremonialism, legalism and nationalism, un- 
der which they lie buried. Our task, then, is a 
peculiar kind of oriental excavation. 

9 


10 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


OLD TESTAMENT FOUNDATION STONES 


The Fatherhood of God.—The first Old Testament 
foundation stone of foreign missions is the doctrine 
of the fatherhood of God, with its corollary the 
brotherhood of man. This doctrine is taught on the 
first page of the Bible. 

When God created the heavens and the earth, He 
made man, the crown of creation, “in His own image.” 
This phrase has been variously interpreted. The 
simplest and original explanation of its meaning is 
that human beings are the sons of God and that God, 
their almighty Creator, is the Heavenly Father of 
them all. This conception of sonship was dimmed or 
destroyed by the Fall, but restored by the Incarnation 
of the only-begotten Son of God in the person of 
Jesus Christ. 

The Brotherhood of Man.—The brotherhood of man 
is the necessary corollary of the fatherhood of God. 
God crowned His creation by making one man and 
one woman. ‘Male and female created He them.” 
All men, therefore, as offspring of Adam and Eve, 
father and mother of all the living, are bone of their 
bone and flesh of their flesh. This bodily relation- 
ship established for all time the universal brother- 
hood of man, despite the physical differences which 
developed in the course of human history. How these 
differences arose and why some races are black in 
their complexion, others white and others tinted, is 
another story. 

Physical brotherhood demands brotherly love and 
brotherly love, even as pure humanitarianism, re- 
quires the sharing of possessions. The best possession 


1Genesis 1: 27. 


DIVINE FORCES 11 


of man from the beginning is the knowledge and 
service of the true God. Adam and Eve had this 
precious possession and shared it with their children. 
If any child of man at any time anywhere falls away 
from the true God and fails to worship and serve 
Him, those who know it and can reach the erring 
brother or sister are bound to seek to restore to the 
sinner this best possession of the human race. This 
is the missionary obligation of human brotherhood. 

One True God.—The first pages of the Bible record 
the relationship of God to man as the Preserver, Ruler 
and Lord of all men and things. To Him as such and 
to Him alone belong divine worship and service. 
There are no other gods besides Him. The first com- 
mandment: “I am the Lord, thy God; thou shalt have 
no other gods before me,’ and the opening address of 
the great universal prayer: “Our Father Who art in 
heaven,’” are written between the lines of the first 
pages of the Bible. 

The fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man 
demand one religion and only one religion on the 
earth; and so long as there are more than one, the 
true religion must be a missionary religion. 

Sin Universal.—The second Old Testament founda- 
tion stone of foreign missions is the conception of the 
necessity of redemption on account of the universality 
of human sin. All men must join the solemn dirge of 
Milton in the first lines of his great poem, “Paradise 
Lost,” and sing: 

“Of man’s first disobedience and the fruit 


Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste 
Brought death into the world and all our woe.” 





1 Exodus 20: 3. 2 Matthew 6: 9. 


12 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


“There is none that doeth good, no not one.’ “As 
by one man sin entered into the world and death by 
sin, so death passed upon all men, for that all have 
sinned.’” That one man was Adam. He, with Eve 
as his partner in disobedience, was driven from 
Paradise; and Cherubim still guard the closed en- 
trance of Eden. The tradition of that garden is found 
everywhere on earth. Go where you will, and you 
find men longing for Paradise restored, in which there 
is perfect peace, righteousness and blessedness. The 
desire for better things, better days and better ways 
is a universal desire. In essence it is a desire for 
deliverance from sin and its evil consequences. 

Redemption Promised.—_The second page of the 
Bible contains the promise of the Redeemer of the 
sinful human race, who as the seed of the woman 
crushes the serpent’s head with his bruised heel. The 
first gospel message fixes the missionary ideal of 
universal redemption, involving the restoration of the 
gracious and blessed presence of God among men, de- 
scribed in the account of the state of Paradise as “God 
walking in the garden.’” ) 

Divided Humanity. — Another Old Testament 
foundation stone of foreign missions is the conception 
of the kingdom of God on earth as a Spiritual king- 
dom.’ The numerous kingdoms of this world, as they 
were and are, and their linguistic differences, with all 
that these involve, are not only great obstacles to be 
overcome by the Kingdom of God, but they are 
definitely the result of human sin. It was not God’s 
original intention that the human race should be 

1Pgalm 14:8. *Genesis 3: 8. 


2 Romans 5: 12. 5 Daniel 2:44 and 7:14. 
3 Genesis 3:15. 





DIVINE FORCES 13 


linguistically and, therefore, nationally divided as it 
is. In the beginning the whole earth was “of one 
language and one speech.’" The diversities of lan- 
guage and of nations date from the building of the 
tower of Babel, which was the first organized effort 
of heathenism, the first union of human labor at- 
tempting to rise by its own efforts to the heights of 
deity. After that arrogant and disastrous uprising 
the barriers of national and class distinctions in the 
spirit of divided heathenism were multiplied, making 
the unity of the human race more and more difficult 
and, as it now appears, practically impossible. 

One Spiritual Kingdom.—Nevertheless the ideal of 
one spiritual kingdom on earth prevailed. It was em- 
bodied in the conception of the Hebrew theocracy, 
which the intense nationalism and materialism of the 
Jews buried under the debris of false hopes concern- 
ing an earthly kingdom of Israel. The spiritual 
Israel, which the great prophets of the Old Testament 
described and demanded but could not create, a king- 
dom of true religion to which all nations on earth 
were to come to worship and serve the true God, was 
a prophetic conception which prepared the way for 
the realization of the New Testament kingdom of God 
in Christ Jesus through the effort of Christian mis- 
sions. 

OLD TESTAMENT COVENANTS 

Another Old Testament foundation stone of foreigrt 
missions was laid by God in the universality of all the 
covenants of the Old Testament. 

Covenant of Dominion.—The first covenant which 
God made with man, the covenant with Adam, was 


Genesis 11:1. 


14 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


the covenant of creation. The gift of this covenant 
was the divine image in man. Its promise was 
dominion over all the earth. This original purpose 
of God concerning the whole human race was spoiled 
by the sinful disobedience of Adam and Eve. But 
the covenant of dominion stands; and it has been 
restored by the incarnate Son of God, Jesus Christ, 
through whom the sinful world is overcome and the 
dominion of redeemed man is assured. 

Covenant of Preservation.—The second Old Testa- 
ment covenant, made with Noah, was the covenant 
of preservation. It included all the descendants of 
Noah and his family, “while the earth remaineth.’” 
The promise of the preservation of the present world 
with its natural laws implies universal mercy from 
on high and a universal obligation of childhood re- 
lationship to God, as it is written: “That ye may be 
the children of your Father which is in heaven; for 
He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, 
and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.’* The 
sign of this covenant, the rainbow, is everywhere 
visible on earth as a token:to all men that God is 
good and His mercy endureth forever. This sign 
should be a reminder to those who see it in the sky, 
that it is the will of God and their obligation to make 
His name and His rule supreme throughout the whole 
earth. The rainbow is a missionary emblem. 

Covenant of Selection——The third Old Testament 
covenant, the covenant with Abraham, was a covenant 
of selection. It involved the choice of the children of 
Israel as God’s peculiar people, who were to be the 





1Genesis 2: 1-20. 3 Matthew 5: 45. 
*Genesis 8:22 and 9: 1-17. 


DIVINE FORCES 15 


recipients of his revelations and the mediators of His 
blessings to all nations. The promise of this covenant 
is, “In thee shall all the families of the earth be 
blessed.’” The conditon of blessing is faith in the word 
of God. The redemptive idea of justification by faith 
originated with Abraham.’ In the fourth chapter of 
Romans and in the third chapter of Galatians Paul 
clearly and convincingly explains the universality of 
the covenant with Abraham, which on God’s part 
promised redemption and blessing for all men and on 
man’s part required faith in the promise of God. Cir- 
cumcision also, though it be not practiced outwardly, 
is the sign of an everlasting covenant, for “circumci- 
sion is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not of the 
letter.’* The thought of foreign missions, therefore, is 
deeply imbedded in the Abrahamitic covenant of selec- 
tion, for “the Scriptures, forseeing that God would 
justify the heathen through faith, preached before the 
gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all the na- 
tions be blessed.” Abraham’s journeys were mission- 
ary journeys in the interest of true religion. He not 
only worshiped the true God in the midst of an 
idolatrous generation, but also was a preacher of 
righteousness wherever he went. Moreover his rela- 
tion to Melchisedec, king of Salem, priest of the Most 
High God, as explained in the seventh chapter of 
Hebrews, has intense missionary significance. 
Covenant of Law.—The fourth Old Testament 
covenant, the Mosaic covenant, was a covenant of 
law. It was the most particularistic and nationalistic 
of all the Old Testament covenants, confined ex- 





1Genesis 12: 3. 3 Romans 2: 29. 
2 Romans 4: 16. 


16 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


clusively to Israel as Jehovah’s people. Yet it was 
clearly revealed that through Israel the moral law, 
given on Mt. Sinai, was to become universal in its ap- 
plication and observance. So the prophets inter- 
preted the meaning and purpose of the command- 
ments of God. Jeremiah admonishes: “If thou wilt 
return, O Israel..... the nations shall bless them- 
selves in Jehovah and in Him shall they glory.” 
Other prophets said the same thing. They conceived 
their missionary task to be the moral regeneration of 
Israel in order that the Gentiles might come to the 
light of Israel and kings to the brightness of the ris- 
ing of true religion. The sixtieth chapter of Isaiah, 
which begins: “Arise, shine; for thy light is come,” 
is a missionary sermon to Israelites. 

Moreover, the prophets interpreted the historical 
events which forced the Israelites into closer relations 
with foreign lands and nations as indications from 
God that the religion of Israel should spread to these 
nations. The punishments of the Gentile nations are 
explained as acts of Jehovah’s power and justice to 
demonstrate His sovereignty over all the earth, and to 
lead the Gentiles to acknowledge and serve Him. 

Missionary Prophets.——While the usual missionary 
conception of the prophets was not that of going to 
all nations but rather of all nations coming to Israel, 
attracted by the truth and purity of its religion, 
nevertheless they sometimes did rise to an apprecia- 
tion of the task of a world-wide proclamation of 
revealed truth. Thus Jonah became a foreign mis- 
sionary when he went to Nineveh, and his call and 
mission are to be interpreted as an exhortation to all 


1Jeremiah 4: 1-2. 


DIVINE FORCES 17 


Israel to fulfill its missionary obligation to the Gentile 
nations. Some people are so much concerned about 
the story of the whale that they cannot understand 
the story of missions in the book of Jonah. 

The Psalmist also exhorts the Israelites to “declare 
among the people His doings,” and to “declare His 
glory among the heathen, His wonders among all peo- 
ple.’”* Several of the psalms are fine Old Testament 
missionary hymns. 3 

The Servant of Jehovah.—isaiah uses an expression 
which has intense significance from ‘a missionary 
point of view. It is the designation of Israel as “the 
servant of Jehovah.” Almost invariably, the prophet 
uses this designation for the purpose of inspiring 
missionary effort. The servant of Jehovah is to bring 
forth judgment to the Gentiles, to save all the ends 
of the earth, to be a light to the Gentiles. Nations 
that did not know Jehovah are to run to Him, and are 
to fear His Name from the west and His glory from 
the rising of the sun. The forty-second chapter of 
Isaiah, which begins: “Behold, my servant, whom 1 
uphold,” is an Old Testament appeal to Israel to be 
the messenger of true religion to all other nations on 
the earth. 

The Dispersion.—The dispersion of the Jews during 
and after the Babylonian captivity served to awaken 
the minds of the prophets of that period to a truer 
conception of the religious mission of Israel in the 
world, and gave the dispersed Jews many and wide 
opportunities to make effective the missionary teach- 
ing of the prophets. To a certain degree, therefore, 
the dispersion fulfilled the purpose of God concern- 


1Psalm 96. Psalm 46:10. 


18 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


ing the world-wide mission of His chosen people. 
They not only preserved and practiced their religion 
in foreign lands but also attracted earnest Gentile 
seekers of the truth, who became proselytes of 
righteousness or proselytes of the gate. It is esti- 
mated that 350,000 Jews were carried into captivity to 
the Euphrates river and beyond. Only about 50,000 
returned to Palestine. The other 300,000 and their 
descendants were scattered abroad, some going as far 
as India and China. In the time of Philo about a 
million Jews lived in Egypt and the religious influence 
of those who resided in Alexandria is known to have 
been strong in certain circles of Greek and Roman 
culture. The Jewish dispersion, therefore, must be 
regarded as one of God’s measures in the Old Testa- 
ment for the preparation of the missionary task of 
the Christian Church. 

The Synagogue.—This becomes all the more evident 
when we understand the significance of the Jewish 
synagogue as the forerunner of the Christian congre- 
gation, and the use of the Septuagint as the first 
translation of the Old Testament into a foreign 
vernacular. 

The Jewish synagogues in Gentile countries, as 
places of public worship for the reading of the Sacred 
Scriptures, preaching and teaching, not only attracted 
non-Jews and thus served as gateways for them into 
the Christian Church, but they also became models 
in their appointment, government and liturgical ser- 
vices for the first Christian congregations. 

The Septuagint.—The Septuagint is a Greek trans- 
lation of the Old Testament, made by Jews in Egypt 
during the period 280 to 150 B. C. This translation 


DIVINE FORCES 19 


was intended not only for Greek-speaking Jews of the 
dispersion, but also for the purpose of extending the 
influence of Judaism among Gentiles who used the 
Greek language, the language of culture in the time 
of Christ. The Septuagint admirably served the first 
Christian disciples in their efforts to spread the Gos- 
pel of Christ. The numerous quotations that occur 
in the New Testament from the Old, with rare excep- 
tions, are cited from the Septuagint. To this day this 
original Greek translation is the accepted version of 
the Old Testament in the Greek Church. 

Thus the foundation stones of foreign missions, 
both small and great, which were laid by God in the 
Old Testament Church, prepared the ground for the 
New Testament building of Christian missions. The 
great commission of Jesus Christ is the last logical 
conclusion of the thought and purpose of God con- 
cerning the redemption of sinful men, revealed from 
the beginning in all His acts and works, all His 
covenants and promises, all His ways and words. The 
apostle Paul saw this very clearly after his eyes had 
been opened by the heavenly vision and holy baptism 
at Damascus, and to him, above all other Christian 
teachers, we are indebted for the conception of the 
Christian Church as the true Israel, of Christ as the 
true Messiah, and of the world-wide mission of Chris- 
tianity, in the fulfillment of prophecy, as the true 
religion. 


THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST CONCERNING 
FOREIGN MISSIONS 
On the foundation stone of Old Testament revela- 
tion and history Jesus Christ built His world-wide 


20 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


kingdom of the New Testament. What the Old 
Testament prepared and predicted, what the cov- 
enants with Adam, Noah, Abraham and Moses fore- 
shadowed concerning the universality of human re- 
demption from sin and its consequences, Jesus Christ 
fulfilled in His person, His gospel, His work and His 
church. 

To the other titles of Jesus Christ now must be 
added the title: The Missionary. The coming of the 
Son of God to the earth to redeem mankind is the 
matchless missionary enterprise. From heaven’s 
point of view the earth, filled with sin and, therefore, 
with enmity against God, needs redemption and trans- 
formation. 

To say that Jesus was not a missionary because He 
confined His life and labors to the land and people of 
the Jews, is to misconceive the purpose and plan of 
His mission on earth. It is true that He did not go 
and preach the gospel to other nations, except when 
He went with His disciples into Samaria and into the 
coasts of Tyre and Sidon; yet what He said and did, 
made it possible to offer salvation in His name to all 
people without exception, to establish a universal 
religion, to Christianize the world. That which Jesus 
Christ accomplished for all nations within the con- 
fines of one nation, is made accessible to all through 
the means He supplied. 

To Jews First.—It was natural and necessary that 
the Jews, as the Old Testament people of God, to 
whom He gave His revelation and promises, should 
have had the first opportunity to secure the benefits 
of Christ’s life and work. “To the Jew first,” said 


DIVINE FORCES 21 


the apostle to the Gentiles, “but also to the Greek,” 
thus restating the words of Christ, “Salvation is of 
the Jews; but the hour cometh and now is, when the 
true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit 
and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship 
Him.’” It is not true that because the Jews rejected 
Christ as their Messiah, the other nations secured the 
opportunity of salvation through Him. They would 
have been given this opportunity in any event, for the 
plan of salvation embraces the whole earth. 

For All Men.—Jesus made it clear from the begin- 
ning of His public career and clearer as He ap- 
proached the end of His life on earth, and clear beyond 
all question after His resurrection and before His 
ascension, that, though His life on earth was confined 
to Palestine, the benefits of His work are for all men. 
That He did not issue His missionary command at 
the outstart reveals His supreme wisdom as the great 
“master teacher, especially in view of the misconcep- 
tions and prejudices of contemporary Israelites and 
the weakness and immaturity of His disciples. 

Three expressions used by Jesus repeatedly, whose 
meaning He explained more and more fully to His 
disciples, are especially significant from a missionary 
point of view. They are: The Kingdom of God or the 
kingdom of heaven, which are synonymous terms; the 
Son of Man, which is the title Christ preferred for 
himself; and apostle, the title He gave His disciples. 


THE KINGDOM OF GOD 


The Kingdom of God, as taught by Christ, is a 
central conception of Christianity. Whatever else it 





1 Romans 1: 16. 2 John 4: 22-23. 


22 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


may mean, one of its distinguishing features certainly 
is universality. Everyone and everything redeemed 
and reunited with God through Christ belongs to this 
kingdom. In reality, because of sin, the reign of God 
on earth is not yet complete and absolute. The King- 
dom of God, therefore, is still in the process of de- 
velopment, a growing kingdom, a coming kingdom. 
For this reason Christ taught His disciples to pray, 
“Thy kingdom come;” and this petition was intended 
by Him to express in prayer His disciples’ zeal for 
the constant extension of the Kingdom of God on 
earth with universality in view. 

A Kingdom of the Spirit—The Kingdom of God is 
the only kingdom on earth which can claim the right 
of world-wide dominion, because it claims this right 
not by might, nor by power, but by the spirit, the 
spirit of Christ, the spirit of redeeming and loving 
service to those who need redemption, “sinners and 
publicans,” poor and needy, weary and heavily laden, 
the downcast, the outcast, the poor in spirit and the 
persecuted for righteousness’ sake, whose is the king- 
dom of heaven. To these the Redeemer says, “Come 
unto me,” and they come to Him from every place 
and plane of life on earth. Because sin and sorrow, 
want and weariness, poverty and pain, distress and 
disease and death are universal, the Kingdom of God 
with its saving and sanctifying power is to be 
universal. 

A Kingdom of the Heart.—“The Kingdom of God 
is within you,’” said Christ. It is the reign of God 
in the heart. It affects the inner man. It is not af- 





1Matthew 11: 28. 4Luke 17: 21. 


DIVINE FORCES 23 


fected by different external conditions or by changing 
external circumstances. It may exist in every human 
heart. It may come into every human life through 
the means of grace, the Word and the Sacraments of 
the New Testament. At this point it may be noted 
that the Bible has been translated into practically all 
human languages and that the earthly elements of 
the sacraments, water, bread and wine, are obtainable 
everywhere on earth. 

A Kingdom of Truth.—When Christ explained to 
Pontius Pilate that the Kingdom of God is the reign 
of truth, that ruler exclaimed, “What is truth?” 
Other potentates, whose idea of dominion has been 
the rule of might, have been as perplexed as that 
Roman governor over the claim of the truth to 
Supreme and universal dominion. Those who belong 
to the Kingdom of God, however, know what Christ 
means when He says, “Everyone that is of the truth 
heareth my voice.’? His voice is heard in the gospel, 
and everyone who hears and believes the gospel is a 
member of the kingdom. 

Nationality, local culture, geographical boundaries, 
social distinctions, therefore, play no part in admis- 
sion to the Kingdom of God. No one is barred be- 
cause he is a Hottentot or Hungarian, a heathen 
Chinaman or a black Barbarian, a Hindu outcast or 
a Hebrew refugee. The conditions of entrance may 
be met by anyone anywhere. They are repentance 
for sins and faith in Christ. The sacrament of admis- 
sion is Holy Baptism. The distinguishing char- 
acteristic of citizenship in the kingdom is spiritual- 
mindedness, that is, having the mind which was in 

1John 18: 88. 4John 18: 87. 


24 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


Christ and minding what he said. Not as though 
the Christianization of those who belong to the king- 
dom were ever complete and perfect in this sinful 
world, but in and through them the process of 
Christianization is always moving onward to com- 
pletion; and to the extent to which they are Chris- 
tianized and are Christianizing others the Kingdom 
of God is coming on earth. 

True Worship.—The universality of the Kingdom of 
God is implied, also, in Christ’s definition of true wor- 
ship as prayer in truth and spirit, anywhere and 
everywhere.’ The fact that Christ so described prayer 
in a conversation with a Samaritan woman makes it 
the more significant. In the eyes of the Hebrews 
Samaritans were outcasts, forbidden to enter the tem- 
ple at Jerusalem. Neither caste distinctions nor 
national differences prevent the worshiper of the true 
God from saying, “Our Father, Who art in heaven.” 
No place is holier than any other, when the Christian 
desires to pray. But Christian prayer is possible every- 
where only if Christians are present everywhere. The 
Christianization of the world, therefore, is demanded 
by the very conception of New Testament prayer. 

Sayings of Jesus—Many sayings of Jesus em- 
phasize the universality of his redemption. He said, 
“IT am come into the world,” “I am the light of the 
world.’” To his disciples He said, “Ye are the light 
of the world,” and “Ye are the salt of the earth.” 
The field of Christ’s saving effort is the world. The 
net is cast into the sea and the apostles are fishers of 
men. The fire which Christ kindles is not a local 





1 John 4: 24. 3 Matthew 5: 14. 
2John 8:12. 


DIVINE FORCES 25 


conflagration, but is sent on the earth. The Son of 
Man has power on earth to forgive sins. The Saviour 
came to seek and to save the lost without distinction. 
He is the Good Shepherd of other sheep besides those 
in the fold of Judaism. 

Parables of Christ.—In the choice of characters in 
His parables Christ avoided nationalistic and provin- 
cial terms and chose illustrations which are univer- 
sally applicable. The kingdom of heaven is like unto 
a man traveling into a far country, a man who has 
two sons. One does not need to know the habits and 
customs of the Jews in order to understand His 
parables and apply them. Thus in His matchless 
parable of the Good Samaritan, in which He strik- 
ingly teaches the universal obligation of brotherly 
love, He makes the object of this love a man with- 
out any distinguishing marks. All the other char- 
acters in the parable are national or social types— 
Samaritan, Levite, Priest, but the one whom love 
serves is simply a man, a man in need, any man in 
need. The lawyer’s question, “Who is my neighbor?” 
is skillfully changed by the parable to read, To whom 
am I neighbor? And now every good neighbor is 
known as a good Samaritan, though many people do 
not know what kind of person a Samaritan of old 
was. The Good Samaritan par excellence is Christ 
himself, the good neighbor of every needy, helpless, 
mortal man on earth. 


THE SON OF MAN 


The Ideal Man.—Jesus Christ is the Son of Man. 
This title definitely refers to His humanity. He was 
1 Luke 10: 36. 


26 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


a human being, “found in fashion as a man.” But 
that is not all. This title identifies Jesus Christ as 
the ideal man, the only man who can claim to be what 
a man ought to be. In him are no imperfections of 
class or caste, of nationality or nature, of culture or 
custom, of heart or habit, of sex or sentiment, of 
temper or temperament. He is neither an oriental 
nor occidental man, though he was a Jew of Pales- 
tine by birth and environment. He is every man’s 
big brother and ideal. Even though this title meant 
nothing more than human perfection, it would de- 
serve mention and merit among all men to the ends 
of the earth, and so call for the spread of His teach- 
ings and the portrayal of His faultless example to 
every human being in the world. 

The True Messiah.—Jesus used this title as a 
synonym for the Messiah, a substitute for “The son 
of David,” which He never employed in speaking of 
Himself. The only time He used the title, “The son 
of David,’’ was in a conversation with Pharisees, 
when He tried to show them the error of their false 
messianic hopes. He did not wish to be the king of 
the Jews as the successor of David and Solomon, 
though He was “of the house of David.” He did not 
wish to rule as an earthly king over Israel. He 
wanted a title which should distinguish Him as the 
king in the kingdom of heaven on earth, and so He 
chose the title: The Son of Man. 

The Second Adam.—This title undoubtedly refers 
to the prediction of the prophet Daniel, who saw ‘“‘one 
like the son of man,” to whom was given dominion 





1Mark 12: 36. 


DIVINE FORCES 27 


and glory and a kingdom, that all people, nations and 
languages should serve him, his dominion being an 
everlasting dominion... The prophet beheld, as it 
were, the man who, as Adam’s descendant, should be 
the second Adam, the second man, with all other de- 
scendants of Adam eliminated as unworthy and dis- 
inherited. To this son, as to Adam’s sole heir, all the 
perfections of man are imparted, to him all power 
over nature and dominion over the whole earth are 
given. He is the representative man, the chief of 
men, the supreme man, the superman. The same 
thought with the same implication is expressed by the 
Psalmist in the 45th Psalm, in which the represen- 
tative of the human race is called the king, who is 
“fairer than the children of men.’” 

The Substitute-—The Son of Man received the in- 
heritance of all that God intended for man in the 
creation, however, not for Himself but for those whom 
He represented and who had lost their inheritance— 
the race of sinful men. His mission on earth was to 
restore to them the good gifts and powers of the 
inheritance ordained for the children of Adam from 
the foundation of the world. He, therefore, became 
the substitute for all men in the sufferings and death 
demanded by divine justice for the redemption of the 
human race. Christ used this title most frequently 
in direct relation to His sacrificial, propitiatory work 
of suffering and obedience. The Son of Man is the 
Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world. 
He is the High Priest of the New Covenant. He is 
the Mediator, the King, the Judge. So comprehen- 
sive in its meaning is this title, that its use by Christ 

1Daniel 7: 13-14. 2Psalm 45:2. 





28 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


makes absolutely consistent and necessary His final 
command to make all men His disciples, all nations 
His kingdom. 

APOSTLE 

That Jesus fully understood the purpose of His mis- 
sion on the earth is evident from the official title He 
gave His first disciples. ‘He chose twelve, whom he 
also named apostles.’* By the use of this title at the 
very beginning of His public career He called them 
to be missionaries to the whole world. The Greek 
word apostle and the Latin word missionary are 
synonymous. Both mean, one who is sent out or away 
on a mission. The twelve must have understood, also, 
when they accepted this title, that they were to 
propagate the religion He taught them. They knew 
that they were to be His witnesses, to teach all men 
His gospel, to extend His kingdom to the ends of the 
earth. 

It is true that when Christ sent out the twelve on 
their first missionary journey he sent them to the 
Jews only and expressly forbade them to go “into the 
way of the Gentiles” or “into any city of the Samar- 
itans.’” This first apostolic activity was a practice 
tour intended to train the disciples for their future 
work as teachers of all nations. When the time came 
for them to do world-wide missionary work He in- 
structed them to preach “in His name among all 
nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” 


CHRIST’S MISSIONARY SERMONS AND SAYINGS 
Jesus preached His first sermon at Nazareth.’ It 





1QLuke 6:18. 3 Luke 4: 16. 
7Matthew 10: 5. 


DIVINE FORCES 29 


provoked His fellow townsmen to wrath, when they 
heard Him say that non-Israelites were to share in 
the fulfillment of the Old Testament promises. He 
offended their narrow Jewish prejudices when He 
asserted that above all widows in Israel the Sidonian 
widow of Sarepta was chosen to receive the special 
favor of Elias, and above all lepers in Israel the 
Syrian Naaman enjoyed the blessing of a cure. His 
words, “‘No prophet is accepted in his own country,’” 
implied that he would be accepted in other countries 
as a teacher sent from God. That first sermon leaves 
no room for doubt concerning Christ’s purpose to in- 
clude the Gentiles in His plan of salvation. 

The same purpose prompted the telling of the story 
of Jonah to another audience, the holding up of the 
men of Nineveh as examples of repenting sinners, 
and the reference to the queen of Sheba.” Again the 
offence given to the Jews was not that Jesus claimed 
to be greater than Jonah and Solomon, but that He 
expressed the purpose of including the nations 
(goyim) in His messianic kingdom. Twice He said 
that many would come from the east and the west, 
from the north and the south, and sit down with 
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. 

When He cleansed the temple in Jerusalem He 
cried, ‘““My house shall be called of all nations the 
house of prayer.’” When He was in Samaria, where 
the despised Jewish half-breeds lived, and called His 
disciples’ attention to the ripening grain fields, He 
said, with undoubted reference to Samaria and other 
non-Jewish countries, “The fields are white already 





1ZLuke 4: 24. 3 Mark 11:17. 
®Luke 11: 31. 


30 ‘ FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


to harvest . . . I send you to reap.’* Once when the 
Jews were especially hostile He cried: ‘“‘The kingdom 
of God shall be taken from you and given to a nation 
bringing forth the fruits thereof.’” 

Christ clearly indicated His purpose to include the 
Gentiles in the plan of salvation in His parable of the 
marriage feast, in which the servants are commanded 
to go into the “highways,” and in the parable of the 
Good Shepherd, in the words, “Other sheep I have 
.... them also I must bring and they shall hear my 
voice.’ The parables of the leaven and of the 
mustard seed may legitimately be interpreted as 
implying the inclusion of the whole human race and 
the whole life of man in the plan of salvation. When 
Mary anointed His feet at Bethany, He exclaimed, 
“Verily I say unto you, wheresoever this gospel shall 
be preached throughout the whole world, this also 
that she hath done, shall be spoken of for a memorial 
of her.’* This is a definite prediction of world-wide 
Christian missions. 

Christ’s predictions concerning the end of the 
world, also, are intensely significant in their relation 
to Christian missions. “This gospel of the kingdom 
shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto 
all nations, and then shall the end come.’* In the 
parable of the sheep and the goats He included all 
nations, separating goats from sheep in all of them. 

Christ Received Gentiles—Not only did Christ say 
that Gentiles would be received into His kingdom, 
but He also accepted non-Israelites as His disciples 
and blessed them. He praised the great faith of 





1John 4:85. 3 Mark 14:9. 
2Matthew 21: 43. 4Matthew 24:14. 





Dr. DAvip Ai DAY 





A MISSIONARY ANNIVERSARY PROCESSION IN GUNTUR, 
INDIA 


Dr. L. L. Uhl on the right elephant. 
Dr. and Mrs. J. Aberly on the left elephant. 
Dr. Anna S. Kugler, M.D., stands in the foreground. 


THE NUMBERS ON THE ARCH 


80 Years of Lutheran Mission History in India. 
50 Years of Service, Dr. L. L. Uhl. 
38 Years of Service, Dr. and Mrs, Aberly, 


DIVINE FORCES 31 


the Canaanitish woman. His words, “Let the children 
first be filled,’* imply that afterwards the Gentiles 
also should have something to eat, partake of the 
children’s bread, and be recognized as members of 
the household of God. The hour for their inclusion 
as a whole had not yet come; but as a guarantee of 
their inclusion He blessed the home of the Syro- 
Phoenician woman. 7 

Another non-Israelite whom He admitted into His 
discipleship was the centurion of Capernaum, whose 
Servant He healed. In this case He did not hesitate 
to perform the miracle, probably because the cen- 
turion was a proselyte and was highly recommended 
by the Jews who knew him; but that Jesus regarded 
this Roman officer as one of the first-fruits from the 
Gentile world, is clear from His words to those who 
heard His conversation with the centurion. 

During the last days of His earthly life certain 
Greek proselytes, who had come to Jerusalem to the 
feast, wished to see Jesus. Their coming to Him led 
Him to deliver a remarkable missionary sermon, in 
which He welcomed all men everywhere to come to 
Him. This is His missionary invitation: “If any man 
Serve me, let him follow me.” And this is His mis- 
sionary promise: “I, if I be lifted up from the earth, 
will draw all men unto myself.’” 

The Great Commission.—All of the four Evan- 
gelists record the great commission or its equivalent. 
Matthew’s version of Christ’s parting injunction is 
the most familiar. Mark’s is shorter. Luke, both at 
the close of his gospel narrative and in the opening 





1Mark 7: 27. 3 John 12:20, 32. 
2 Matthew 8: 10-11. 


32 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


chapter of the Acts, quotes words of Christ, which 
indicate that He gave His apostles detailed instruc- 
tions concerning their missionary task. John records 
words of the risen Christ in connection with one of 
His appearances, which have the same meaning as the 
great commission: ‘‘As my Father hath sent me, even 
so send I you.’” 

What a world of meaning lies in the few words of 
the great commission! It fixes the power and 
authority of Him who gave the command: “All power 
in heaven and on earth.” It defines the character and 
the sphere of the missionary work to be done by His 
church: “Go and make disciples of all nations.” It 
describes the mode and means of missionary opera- 
tion: “Baptize and teach.” It furnishes a creed to be 
confessed by converts: “In the name of the Father, 
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” It assures 
uninterrupted divine guidance and blessing: “Lo, I 
am with you always.” It sets the goal for missionary 
effort: ‘The end of the world.” 

Every Disciple a Witness.—The apostles obeyed the 
great commission; but they did not make its fulfill- 
ment their exclusive obligation. They laid upon every 
disciple of Christ the duty of bearing witness and of 
helping to carry the gospel into all the world. 

The first to preach the gospel beyond the borders 
of Judea were not apostles in the strict sense of that 
term, but evangelists. Philip, the evangelist, won the 
first convert in Samaria and baptized the eunuch of 
Ethiopia. The first missionaries among the Gentiles 
in Antioch were men of Cyprus and Cyrene. The 





1 John 20: 21. 2Matthew 28: 19-20. 


DIVINE FORCES 33 


apostles not only knew of these developments but en- 
couraged them. The first controversy which arose 
among them did not turn on the question of the ad- 
mission of Gentiles into the Christian Church, but 
on their admission only after certain Old Testament 
requirements, notably circumcision, had been ob- 
served by them. Similar ceremonial questions have 
vexed and hindered missionary operations among non- 
Christians ever since, but the universality of the plan 
of redemption has never been a matter of Christian 
controversy. 

That all the apostles did not at once leave Jerusalem 
and travel into all parts of the world to preach the 
gospel, must not be construed as a misunderstanding 
of the great commission. They were simply comply- 
ing with Christ’s express injunction to begin their 
missionary work in Jerusalem and Judea. They may 
have been inclined unduly to prolong this geographical 
beginning, just as some Christians to this day have 
over-emphasized the need of the gospel in the home- 
land to the disparagement of foreign missions; but 
persecutions and the destruction of Jerusalem forced 
the apostles to go elsewhere and preach the gospel. 
Tradition sends them into various countries of Africa, 
Asia and Europe; but it is evident that the apostles 
could not literally and fully complete the obligation 
of the great commission. It has remained for the 
Christian Church to do that in the progressive expan- 
sion of Christianity. As long as the great commission 
stands at the close of the gospel records, Christianity 
must be a missionary religion, and foreign missions 





1 Acts 1:8. Luke 24:47, 


34 


FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


must remain one of the supreme tasks of the Chris- 
tian Church, until at the end of the ages the ends of 
the earth actually have been reached. 


8. 


QUESTIONS 


Old Testament Foundation Stones of Foreign Missions 


. Why is the Bible a missionary book? 


What fundamental doctrines of true religion, taught in the 
Old Testament, have peculiar missionary significance? 


_ Wherein lies the thought of universality in each ot the 


Old Testament covenants? 


. Give the missionary interpretation of the Old Testament 


designation “The Servant of Jehovah,” as applied to Israel. 


. Explain the missionary significance of the synagogue. 
. How did the Septuagint serve the missionary effort of the 


Apostolic Church? 


The Teaching of Jesus Christ Concerning Foreign Missions 


7 Why is the Kingdom of God necessarily a world-wide 


kingdom? 

Quote a number of sayings of Jesus, which refer to the 
world-wide influence of His life and teachings or to that 
of His disciples. 


. Mention a number of Jabapiel which require a missionary 


interpretation. 


. Why is the title “The Son of Man” peculiarly significant 


from a missionary point of view? 


. What is the meaning of the title Apostle? 
. Quote the great commission. 
. Why is the obligation of the great commission not exclu- 


sively an apostolic obligation? 


a 


CHAPTER II 


HUMAN FORCES 


THE MISSIONARY 


Paul was the first and foremost foreign missionary 
of the Christian Church, and, as such, the greatest 
individual human force in foreign missions. 

Thirty-three years elapsed between the birth of 
Jesus Christ and His death on the cross. Thirty-three 
years elapsed between the crucifixion of the Saviour 
of the world and the martyrdom of His great apostle 
Paul. During the first thirty-three years of the new 
era Christianity was established by its Founder as 
- the true and universal religion. During the next 
thirty-three years the universality of Christianity was 
demonstrated in the missionary success and teaching 
of Paul. More than thirty-seven times thirty-three 
years of Christian history have passed, and still its 
universality remains unrealized, because the Chris- 
tian Church has failed to complete Christ’s missionary 
program in the spirit inaugurated by the great apostle 
to the Gentiles. 

Paul’s Apostleship.—Not John, the beloved disciple, 
not Peter, the impetuous, assertive spokesman of the 
Twelve, not any one of those who enjoyed Christ’s 
intimate companionship for three and one-half years 
and who heard Him deliver His great missionary com- 
mand on the mount of Ascension, was chosen by the 
Master to be the chief advocate of His plan of world- 

35 


36 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


wide redemption. An outsider, a Jew of the disper- 
sion, a man of Tarsus in Cilicia, a converted enemy 
and persecutor of Christians, whom the other apostles 
reluctantly admitted to their inner circle, a man who 
probably never saw Jesus in the flesh, never heard a 
single one of His sermons, never saw a single one of 
His miracles, became Christ’s choice instrument for 
the discipling of the nations. To compensate for his 
disadvantage and to give him the stamp and standing 
of an apostle, the glorified God-man vouchsafed to 
Paul a marvelous vision of Himself and gave him a 
special apostolic commission. 

Author, Theologian, Organizer.—The importance 
of the life and work of Paul as a Christian missionary 
cannot be overestimated. He not only spread the 
gospel throughout the most important and influential 
regions of the then known world but also laid the 
foundation of the Church Universal in its theology 
and in its polity. Except, possibly, for the epistle of 
James, Paul wrote the first New Testament Scripture 
—his letter to the Thessalonians. His other letters 
constitute a large portion of the New Testament. He 
also influenced the composition of another large por- 
tion, including the Acts, in which his missionary 
activity is reported, and the gospel narrative written 
by Luke, one of Paul’s traveling companions and mis- 
sion helpers. Paul’s religious statements and sys- 
tem, which became normative for all future the- 
ologians, were produced by the exigencies of his varied 
missionary contacts and controversies, concerning 
which he wrote to his converts and congregations. 
In consequence of his missionary work and exper- 
iences, moreover, he became the pioneer organizer of 


HUMAN FORCES 37 


H 


the life, activity and government of the Christian 
Church. He was undoubtedly, next to Christ, the 
greatest benefactor of the human race. 


PAUL’S MISSIONARY CAREER 


The missionary careers of the other apostles are 
nebulous, veiled in unreliable tradition. That of the 
apostle Paul is reported in detail. Step by step we 
follow him from country to country, from place to 
place on his missionary journeys, observing what he 
did, hearing what he said, knowing what he suffered, 
learning how he worked and understanding why he 
succeeded. We see the life and activity of the con- 
gregations he established, unfolding under his care- 
ful attention. We know their difficulties, their sins, 
their contentions, their problems, their virtues, their 
triumphs in the new faith and in the pursuit of the 
new ideals of holiness, which he taught them. We 
may look even into the inner recesses of the great 
heart of this missionary and see his unwavering 
faith, his loyal love, his grievous anxieties, his keen 
disappointments, his triumphant hope, his wonderful 
plans, his unparalleled success. The record of his 
missionary activity in the Acts and the reports which 
he wrote in his letters, furnish a veritable mine of 
information concerning the times in which he lived, 
the people whom he influenced, the conditions under 
which he labored. They reveal a heathen world grown 
old and decadent, hastening to its ruin, called by this 
disciple of Christ to halt on its downward course, and 
then by him, one man against a world-empire, turned 
- around and led into a new path of thought, faith and 


38 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


life. They show how he did this marvelous thing 
simply by preaching and teaching a new religion 
which, despite terrible persecutions, gained an im- 
petus during the sixteen years of this man’s mission- 
ary activity, which was irresistible, swept aside all 
opposition and established its claim of universality. 

Siateen Years a Foreign Missionary.—We possess 
reliable and detailed information concerning only a 
third of Paul’s life. That which is recorded in the 
Acts and in Paul’s letters covers a period of only six- 
teen years, from the time of his first missionary jour- 
ney in 46 A. D., to his imprisonment in Rome from 
58 to 62. The two periods concerning which we know 
little or nothing are those which precede and follow 
his missionary activity. In the first two chapters of 
Galatians Paul lifts the veil to some extent and reveals 
what he did during the fourteen or fifteen years in- 
tervening between his conversion and simultaneous 
inner missionary call at Damascus, and his official 
commissioning by the congregation at Antioch in the 
year 46. This was the period of his missionary pre- 
paration, during which he studied Christianity and to 
some extent preached it. 

In the twelfth chapter of II Corinthians he refers 
to certain revelations which he received during this 
period. Otherwise we know very little concerning 
those years which were of the greatest importance for 
his theological development and missionary prepara- 
tion. Concerning his childhood and early manhood he 
tells us that he was born in Tarsus and that, as a 
student in Jerusalem, he sat at the feet of Gamaliel. 
Again, after the abrupt conclusion of the Acts the 
veil is only slightly lifted by Paul himself in the let- 


. 
ee 


HUMAN FORCES 39 


ters he wrote in or after that imprisonment. Chris- 
tian tradition is strangely meagre and unreliable con- 
cerning the closing years of the great apostle’s life. 
Some authorities conclude that he died in prison, 
others that he was released and undertook a fourth 
missionary journey in the regions of his former 
activity, or in Italy and Spain. 


PAUL’S MISSIONARY LETTERS 


All of Paul’s letters were written by him to mis- 
sion congregations, helpers or converts, with definite 
mission problems and purposes in mind. Not one of 
them was composed as a technical theological treatise, 
despite the fact that the Christian Church has valued 
them almost solely from a theological point of view. 

Their Missionary Purpose.—Paul wrote his first let- 
ter to the Thessalonians in order to strengthen the 
new faith of the recent converts there, who were en- 
during persecutions like those which he and Silas had 
endured during their comparatively brief stay in that 
city from which they barely escaped with their lives. 
He also wished to encourage them to lead consistent 
Christian lives, despite the temptations of surround- 
ing heathenism. His references in his first letter to 
the nearness of the return of Christ to this earth was 
misunderstood and he wrote again to remove this mis- 
understanding, urging his converts to fortitude, calm- 
ness and industry, while they looked for the second 
Advent. 

Paul wrote his letter to the Galatians to prevent 
his converts in the congregations of the province in 
Asia Minor, called Galatia, from being misled by 
teachers from Jerusalem, who impugned his apostolic 


40 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


authority and his personal character, and insisted 
that all Christians should observe the Jewish law and 
be circumcised. In this letter Paul laid the the- 
ological foundation for the doctrine of Christianity as 
the one, true and universal religion. It, therefore, 
has exceptional value as a missionary document. 

In his first letter to the Corinthians he wrote in 
answer to a letter from that church asking guidance 
from him in several important matters touching dis- 
sensions and disorders among his converts. In his 
second letter the apostle expressed his gratitude for 
the kindness and obedience of the majority of the con- 
gregation and defended himself against attacks from 
the minority, who had been influenced by other teach- 
ers. Converts and congregations in foreign mission 
fields may learn many valuable lessons from these 
letters. 

In his letter to the Romans he wrote to introduce 
himself as a Christian missionary, who wished to in- 
clude the capital city of the empire in his missionary 
program, and explained to those who had never heard 
him preach, the gospel message which he wished to 
bring also to them. This letter is the only one which 
approaches the character of a theological treatise. 

His letter to the Ephesians was a circular letter 
addressed to mission congregations in Roman Asia, 
some of which he probably had established and all of 
which had to face the danger of being misled by 
Judaizing separatists. He, therefore, emphasized 
the unity of all Christians in Christ, the invisible 
divine Head, and the character of Christianity as the 
religion for all nations. ‘The contents of the letter 
are closely related to those of his epistle to the Colos- 


HUMAN FORCES 41 


sians, who were converts of his disciple and colaborer 
Epaphras. 

The epistle to the Colossians was written at the 

solicitation of Epaphras to combat dangerous phil- 
osophical speculations concerning the relation of God 
to man through the mediation of spirits and concern- 
ing all matter as being inherently evil and, therefore, 
in opposition to God. The Colossians were being mis- 
led by teachers of these errors to worship angels, on 
the one hand, and on the other to adopt an ascetic 
life. Against these errors Paul sets the life, work 
and person of the historical Christ as the one, all- 
sufficient Mediator, the Head of all creation, in whose 
fellowship and service all evil is overcome. All mis- 
sionaries have learned the need of just such corrective 
literature for new converts, and some have produced 
it to combat other non-Christian philosophies. 
- Paul’s letter to the Philippians, with its warm ex- 
pression of personal affection, reveals a congregation, 
whose progress in Christian faith and life gave the 
missionary great joy, but which still needed from him 
counsel, warning and encouragement. 

His letters to Timothy and Titus were letters of 
admonition and instruction to mission helpers, who 
were to be his successors as leaders of the Church. 
His letter to Philemon was, as it were, a postal card 
to a friend concerning a certain family difficulty. 

The importance of Paul’s letters as New Testament 
Scripture lies in the fact that they were written with- 
in twenty years after the death of Christ, record the 
content of his missionary preaching, express his re- 
ligious convictions and reflect the faith and teaching 
of apostolic Christianity. 


42 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


PAUL’S MISSIONARY EXAMPLE 

Paul is the example of all Christian missionaries 
in his flaming zeal for the spread of the gospel in all 
the world. He employed all his gifts and talents in 
winning souls for Christ. He was indefatigable as a 
propagandist of Christianity. He never dissipated 
his energy or wasted his time in unrelated enterprises. 
He was in every sense a whole time missionary. With 
unbounded enthusiasm, however, he combined sanity 
of judgment, patient effort and steadfastness of pur- 
pose. His mission in life was to preach and teach the 
gospel to those who had not yet heard it. He did not 
need to devote any time or attention to the establish- 
ment or conduct of schools, to medical practice, to 
institutions of mercy or to building operations. This 
does not mean that the subordinate agencies of mod- 
ern missionary work are to be condemned and dis- 
continued because Paul did not employ them; but it 
does mean that their use is justifiable only when they 
are really subordinated to the main purpose of 
Christianization. . 

Paul is exemplary in his missionary adaptability. 
The well-known passage in the ninth chapter of I 
Corinthians, which he concludes with the statement 
that he was made all things to all men that he might 
by all means save some, does not sanction compro- 
mises with non-Christian doctrines and practices. 
Paul was not a Greek to the Greeks and a Jew to the 
Jews in the spheres of religious faith or morals; but 
he adapted his one message of salvation through Jesus 
Christ to the mental capacity of his audiences and 
avoided the mistake of overemphasizing matters of 
indifference. 


HUMAN FORCES 43 


A Missionary Statesman.—Paul is exemplary in his 
missionary leadership. He was more than an evan- 
gelist; he was the organizer of the life, activity and 
government of the Christian Church. Coupled with 
his message of salvation by faith in Christ was his 
constant exhortation to holiness of life as the fruit of 
Christian faith and not as a work of the law. In his 
insistence on sanctification he was explicit in his re- 
quirements concerning Christian conduct in matri- 
mony, in the home, in business, in social and civil life. 
He sought not only to convert individuals but also in 
every place established an organized congregation 
with common Christian life and activity. He made 
the congregation the unit of Christian society, but not 
so as to make each congregation an isolated and un- 
related unit. He provided for church order, discipline 
and government. He instituted the office of the Chris- 
tian ministry and arranged the orderly conduct of 
public Christian services. He made the Christian 
Church a permanent and living organization. He was 
a missionary statesman of the right sort and of the 
highest order. 

Missionary Methods.—The principles of Christian 
missions, which Paul taught and practiced, are nor- 
mative for all times and places; but his missionary 
methods need not be followed by all missionaries in 
every detail. Each missionary must work with the 
material and the tools he has. Paul’s quickest and 
best approach to the Gentiles whom he wished to 
reach, was through the Jewish synagogue, where he 
found proselytes who had been attracted by the 
monotheism and moral ideals of Judaism. They gave 
him a sympathetic hearing. They read the Sep- 


44 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


tuagint, which Paul used in his sermons and quoted 
in his letters. Not many missionaries to foreign 
countries find such advantageous starting points. 

Unlike most foreign missionaries Paul did not need 
to learn a foreign language. He was master of two 
widely diffused languages, the Aramaic-Hebrew and 
the Greek language, which fully served his missionary 
purposes wherever he went. 

The field in which Paul labored, the Roman empire 
of his day, was a powerful political entity, in which 
law and order prevailed. All parts of the empire were 
controlled from Rome as its center. Good roads on 
land and many ships at sea made travel comparatively 
easy over the routes which Paul chose for his mis- 
sionary journeys. His choice of cities or larger towns 
as strategic starting points for his missionary work, 
was a wise policy under the circumstances. It is not 
necessarily the only policy of missionary strategy. 
Indeed, Paul also did rural evangelistic work, as for 
instance in Galatia, and he always encouraged the 
spread of the gospel in all regions round about the 
central station. 

Church and Missionary Finance.—Paul’s manual 
labor as a tent maker has been cited as exemplary; 
but there is no reason to believe that he always and 
in every place supported himself. In Thessalonica 
and Corinth he worked at his trade for a living so as 
not to create the impression that he was dependent upon 
his converts in the same manner as the priests of the 
non-Christian religions. In other cities he accepted 
gifts and remuneration from his converts and con- 
gregations, as for instance from the Philippians. He 
also encouraged them to help one another financially. 


HUMAN FORCES 45 


He arranged extensive collections of funds for the 
needy congregation in Jerusalem. To solve the ditf- 
ficult financial problem of the support of the local con- 
gregations and of their missionary and benevolent 
activity he inaugurated a system of church finance, 
to which the Church is returning after centuries of 
experimenting along other lines. It is that of weekly, 
proportionate, systematic giving as a part of the reg- 
ular public worship on the Lord’s Day. 

There is a wide difference between the external cir- 
cumstances of apostolic missions and those of our 
modern times in non-Christian lands. Consequently 
our present day missionary methods may not always 
be similar to those which Paul used. Nevertheless 
the purpose of Christian missions remains the same 
for all times. The foreign missionary today, like 
Paul, the first missionary, is a maker of Christian dis- 
ciples, a builder of the Christian Church, a promoter 
of the Kingdom of God on earth. 


THE FOREIGN MISSIONARY TODAY 


To this day the personal, living, active and produc- 
tive forces in foreign missions are the foreign mis- 
sionary and the native worker. 

The foreign missionary, like the minister in the 
home church, is the officially called and appointed 
messenger of God to bear the gospel of salvation 
through Jesus Christ to sinful men. His preaching 
and teaching is to work repentance, faith and godly 
living in and through his converts. He is sent by the 
Church to the foreign field with the commission to 
open the Book, as Jesus did in Nazareth, and say: 


46 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath 
anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath 
sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliver- 
ance to the captives and recovering of sight to the 
blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach 
the acceptable year of the Lord.” The missionary’s 
whole life, all he says and does, is to testify that this 
scripture is fulfilled through Christ in the ears of all 
Christians and non-Christians who hear and see him. 

The foreign missionary is the living link between 
the home Church, which sends him, and the Church 
in the mission field, for whose existence and growth 
he lives and labors. 

Twofold Aspect of Missionary’s Work.—After the 
new missionary reaches the mission field he finds that 
his work assumes a twofold aspect: one towards non- 
Christians who are still to be reached by the gospel 
and who constitute the overwhelming proportion of 
the inhabitants of the mission field, and the other 
towards converts to Christianity already baptized and 
added to the Church by former missionaries and their 
native helpers. In larger and’ well-organized missions 
like our mission in India, the missionary is called upon 
to devote much of his time and attention to the native 
Christians; and he functions as a missionary largely 
through the native Christian workers, who look to 
him for advice and guidance. In our India mission 
each district missionary has from 100 to 200 native 
workers under his supervision. In our other missions 
the missionary is associated with fewer native work- 
ers and it is one of his chief missionary problems to 
help to produce a larger number of efficient workers. 
In the educational, medical and other departments of 


HUMAN FORCES 47 


mission work, also, the missionary must rely to a large 
degree on native Christian teachers for evangelistic 
influence among the students in school, patients in 
hospitals and dispensaries, and among non-Chris- 
tians employed or attracted. Nevertheless, in any 
field or department of mission work the zealous mis- 
sionary always finds opportunity to try his own hand 
at the great and difficult task of direct evangelization 
through preaching, teaching and conversation. 


MISSIONARY QUALIFICATIONS 


The chief responsibility of the Board of Foreign 
Missions in regard to missionaries lies in the selection 
of qualified men and women. The call and public com- 
missioning by the Board are the official certification 
of the Church that the person chosen is qualified for 
the appointed task. The commissioning, following 
ordination, may be regarded as an act of installation. 
To the people to whom the missionary is sent the call 
and commissioning are a guarantee that he is a faith- 
ful and true witness of the doctrines and life of the 
sending church. 

Selection of Missionaries.—Not only because he is 
to be the accredited agent of the home Church and 
the guide and counsellor of the native Church in the 
mission field, but also for his own sake, because the 
missionary must be sure that he has chosen his ap- 
pointed life-work, the candidate for foreign service 
has a personal right to the most inquiring, compre- 
hensive and thorough consideration of himself, his 
aptitudes, his acquirements, and his preparation for 
missionary service. The process of selection, which 


48 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


may last a number of years, invariably includes a 
careful physical examination by a medical adviser of 
the Board or a physician appointed by the Board, be- 
cause no one should undertake foreign service who 
suffers from an organic disease or chronic weakness. 
Good health is required for effective work, especially 
in the tropics. Wives of missionaries, also, must pass 
this examination. As a rule, on account of social 
conditions in non-Christian countries and because the 
Christian home is a powerful factor in the mission- 
ary enterprise, men are advised to marry before they 
leave for the foreign field. 

Theological students are always called subject to 
their ordination. For them and for all other it is re- 
quired that written recommendations of character and 
qualifications be furnished by their pastors and 
others, who know them intimately. Conferences and 
interviews with board secretaries, in particular the 
candidate secretary, and correspondence covering the 
life, relations, studies and preparation of the can- 
didate are intended to lead to conviction on the part 
of the candidate and of the Board that the choice has 
been made in accordance with the will of God, and 
that the right line of preparation is being pursued. 

Some of the other qualifications for missionary 
service, besides a sound mind in a sound body, are the 
spiritual qualifications of Christian faith, love and 
hope, a thorough knowledge of the Bible and Chris- 
tian doctrine, which are primary qualifications, 
familiarity which church life and activity, linguistic 
ability, ability to teach, adaptability to new sur- 
roundings and strange people, sympathy with sinful 
and suffering fellow-beings, common sense and good 





HUMAN FORCES 49 


judgment, willingness to work harmoniously with 
others, patience blended with courage and steadiness 
of purpose despite difficulties and discouragements. 

Student Volunteers. — Many candidates are in- 
fluenced more or less by the Student Volunteer Move- 
ment. This movement has been criticized for urging 
upon young men and women the decision for service 
abroad before the Church through the Board of for- 
eign missions has extended a call. The Student 
Volunteer decision, however, is not a decision to serve 
but a decision to willingness and readiness to serve 
when the external call comes. This should be the at- 
titude of every sincere disciple of Christ in obedience 
to the great command. Moreover, the movement has 
diligently and successfully cultivated among students 
in many institutions the study of missions in all 
phases and fields, and has impressed upon many young 
men and women the missionary obligation as related 
to their own lives. The Student Volunteer pledge is 
so qualified that if one who takes it does not go to the 
foreign field, he or she may still keep it by devotion 
to the cause of foreign missions in the home Church. 
It is the justifiable boast of the movement that its 
detained volunteers are zealous mission workers in 
their home congregations. 

Inner Call.—In any event the foreign missionary 
must first have an inner call before the external call 
of the Church reaches him or her through the Board 
of foreign missions. St. Paul, the first and greatest 
Christian missionary, received his inner ¢all in a 
miraculous manner at the gate of Damascus. Then 
he had to wait patiently and prepare diligently for 
years in the face of the opposition of the other 


50 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


apostles, while the church at Jerusalem withheld its 
sanction, until he got his external call from the con- 
gregation in Antioch. The inner call to missionary 
service may be conveyed by the Holy Spirit in various 
ways. He usually employs some earnest friend to 
convey it. This inner call may be defined as a spirit- 
ual influence producing willingness and readiness to 
grasp the opportunity personally to respond to the 
obligation of the great commission of the Lord Jesus 
Christ. 

Missionary Preparation.—For the theological stu- 
dent there is no better advice concerning preparation 
for foreign service than to say: “Make the most of 
your opportunities at the theological seminary.” This 
is said with the understanding that the theological 
seminary not only provides a course of study in mis- 
sions, but also encourages each professor to manifest 
a missionary spirit and give the missionary interpre- 
tation of his subject which the Bible itself and the 
history of the Church demand. It is taken for 
granted, moreover, that courses are offered on the 
theory and practice of missions, the history of mis- 
sions, Biblical pedagogy and comparative religions. 
Some subjects, which are desirable and which a the- 
ological seminary is not expected to provide but which 
may be taken in a school of missions, in side courses 
or summer courses, are: ethnology, anthropology, 
political and economic science and geography, mis- 
sions and world movements, sociology, business meth- 
ods, elementary medicine, hygiene, sanitary science 
and phonetics. 

For women candidates the best preparation is a 
regular college course. In some cases a normal course 





HUMAN FORCES 51 


may suffice. The woman missionary in any sphere 
except medicine and nursing, and even in those to 
some extent, is primarily a teacher, and unless she 
has learned the art of teaching, she will be severely 
handicapped in her mission work. 

The desirable age for a man to begin his service 
as a foreign missionary is from the twenty-fourth to 
the thirty-fifth year of age, for a women before her 
thirtieth year. 

It has been suggested that missionary candidates 
might well make a thorough study of the fields to 
which they are about to go. This is desirable but not 
essential. Most Boards prefer to have men say that 
they will go where the need is the greatest, leaving 
the study of the field as a part of the life-work of 
the missionary to be carried out in the field itself. 
The same general principle holds in regard to lan- 
guage study. 

Language Study.—tThe first task of the missionary 
after he reaches the foreign field is the study of the 
vernacular of his field, the people who inhabit it and 
their habits of thought, life and religion. It is his 
primary duty as a missionary to learn to know them 
well. His efficiency in mission work depends upon it. 
In India the new missionary must spend his entire 
first year in the study of the vernacular, and most 
of his second year in the same study, while he assists 
an older missionary. He is required to pass a first 
language examination at the end of his first year of 
residence and a second examination at the end of 
the second year. A third year is optional. In con- 
junction with this language study there is now pro- 
vided a course on Hinduism. The language study is 


52 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


under the general direction of a committee of the 
organized mission, and the examinations are con- 
ducted by a selected group of missionaries from va- 
rious missions in the same language area. Each mis- 
sionary student of the language has a munshi or lan- 
guage teacher, employed by the mission. This ar- 
rangement has not been entirely satisfactory and an 
inter-mission language school for the Telugu area is 
under discussion. Other language areas have such 
schools. After the missionary has resided in the 
country two years and has passed his examination he 
is placed in independent charge of work and receives 
his first increase of salary. Only in exceptional cases 
is a missionary assigned work before he has passed 
his second examination. 

In Japan all new missionaries spend a year in a 
language school in Tokio. Some take a second year, 
but the consensus of opinion inclines to the desir- 
ability of continuing language study during the sec- 
ond and succeeding years in personal contact with 
native life, while the missionary is engaged in assist- 
ing some older missionary or, when there is a lack 
of missionaries, after he assumes charge of a station. 

In Liberia only the English language is used along 
the coast and the missionaries at the main station 
need to know no other language. Those, however, 
who go into the interior must learn Kpele, which is 
now being studied by new missionaries under the 
direction of a missionary teacher at Kpolopele. Mis- 
sionary Leonard is the first man who has reduced this 
language to writing. He has translated the gospel 
according to St. Mark into Kpele, published by the 
American Bible Society. 





HUMAN FORCES 53 


In British Guiana only English is required at pres- 
ent, though fine opportunities await the man who will 
learn Hindi, the language of the east Indian im- 
migrants, and Arawak, the language of the inland 
aborigines. 

In Argentine the missionary needs to have a good 
command of Spanish. The study of this language 
may be advantageously begun in America. 

The assignment of the work of the missionary is 
made by the mission organization on the field. Those 
who have specialized training, such as doctors, nurses, 
educationalists, agriculturalists, engineers, business 
men and women, are assigned to their special de- 
partments. 

Salary.—The principle which guides the Board of 
Foreign Missions in its financial relations with the 
missionary is that sufficient support shall be provided . 
to enable the missionary to live and work in good 
health and spirits, without financial anxiety or phy- 
sical discomfort and with maximum efficiency. It is 
very desirable that all debts be paid or arrangements 
be made for their payment by the missionary through 
the Board before leaving America. In each mission 
the missionary, married or unmarried, receives 
salary, paid monthly as a rule, according to the living 
conditions of the country in which the missionary 
labors. In Japan and in Buenos Aires, therefore, the 
salaries are somewhat higher than in India or Liberia. 

Allowances.—Before sailing each missionary re- 
ceives a fixed amount as an outfit allowance, with 
which needful things for the journey may be pur- 
chased. His traveling expenses by direct journey to 
the field are paid. His salary begins when he reaches 


54 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


the field. The following allowances under the rules 
of the mission are granted in addition to salary: 
Children’s allowance according to scale, a dwelling for 
the missionary and his family, heavy furniture, re- 
pairs to buildings and furniture, language study al- 
lowance, medical allowance, vacation allowance, 
official postage, taxes, widow’s and disabled mission- 
ary’s allowance, pension after the age of seventy. 
These allowances provide for variety of income ac- 
cording to need. 

The terms of service in India are uniformly seven 
years for married and unmarried men, and five years 
for women missionaries. In Japan and Argentine the 
same rule applies. In Liberia the term for all mis- 
Sionaries has recently been reduced to twenty-seven 
months, because the climate has a very debilitating 
effect on the missionary. For British Guiana no rules 
as yet have been adopted. 

Furlough.—The furlough period in America lasts 
from six to eighteen months, the shorter period for 
Liberia missionaries on account of their frequent fur- 
loughs. The furlough period is used by the mission- 
ary for (1) rest and recreation, (2) renewed con- 
tact with the home Church through deputation ser- 
vice, by which, also, the home Church is encouraged 
to continue and increase its missionary effort by gift 
and prayer, and (3) further preparation through 
Special studies. The first furlough is now regarded 
as the final period of missionary preparation, exper- 
ience having shown that the first term of service 
abroad reveals to the missionary, the mission and 
the board in what direction or department of work 
the missionary is best fitted to serve. 





HUMAN FORCES 55 


The scale of furlough salaries is the same for all 
missionaries, irrespective of the foreign field, being 
adapted to the scale of living in America and the 
terms of service in the field. They are slightly lower 
than field salaries for missionaries from Japan and 
Buenos Aires, slightly higher for those from the other 
fields. Furlough allowances, also, are the same for 
all missionaries. Furlough salaries and allowances 
begin when the missionary leaves the field and end 
when he again reaches the field after furlough. 

The missionary as a rule retains his membership 
in the home Church, though some have preferred to 
identify themselves fully with the native Church by 
joining a local congregation in the mission field. The 
main reason for retaining membership in some con- 
gregation at home, despite long separation from it, 
is that the missionary should preserve his or her 
status as the representative of the home Church and 
his or her position as a mediating agent of the home 
Church in relation to the native Church. The con- 
sular, diplomatic and other agents of a government, 
residing in foreign countries, remain citizens of the 
country which has appointed them. American mis- 
sionaries should, also, remain citizens of the United 
States of America. Our experiences with mission- 
aries of other national citizenship during and after 
the war have clearly demonstrated the desirability of 
the protection afforded by American citizenship for 
missionaries in the service of American boards. 

What, then, is the conclusion of the whole matter 
concerning missionaries? It is this: For foreign mis- 
sion service men and women are needed, to whom the 
foreign mission enterprise is not a matter of inci- 


56 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


dental concern, of adventure or experiment, of tem- 
porary employment or transient enthusiasm, but a 
matter of vital concern and supreme importance, of 
loving obedience and life-service. We need men and 
women with deep conviction and confidence of pur- 
pose, who choose this service in the face of any and 
all objections which indifference or prejudice at home 
may raise, and who will persevere in this service 
despite all obstacles met in the foreign field. The 
foreign mission enterprise, more than any other un- 
dertaking of the Christian Church, calls for men and 
women who are eager to make disciples in obedience 
to Christ’s last command, and who want to serve 
Christ’s redemptive purpose for the world where 
disciple-making is most needed and most difficult; 
men and women whose minds and hearts and lives 
have been prepared by divine grace and trained by 
Christian education to undertake great things for 
God; humble, self-sacrificing men and women, cour- 
ageous, faithful, true-hearted men and women, ful- 
filling their high calling as apostles, messengers, 
martyrs, witnesses, angels of Jesus, angels of light, 
angels of the churches in the mission fields. 


QUESTIONS 
THE MISSIONARY 
Paul, the First Missionary 

. What position does Paul occupy in the Christian Church in 

consequence of his missionary work? 
. Into what three periods may the life of Paul be divided? 
. How long was Paul actively engaged in mission work? 
. Define the missionary character of each of Paul’s letters. 
. Mention some of the points in which Paul was exemplary 

as a missionary. 


=" 


Ol Rm co bd 





12. 


13. 


HUMAN FORCES 57 


. What methods characterized Paul’s efforts to make Chris- 


tian disciples? 


. What system of church and missionary finance did Paul 


establish? 
The Foreign Missionary Today 


. For what purpose are missionaries sent to non-Christian 


lands? 


. Which are some of the chief qualifications for foreign 


mission service? 


. How does the foreign missionary usually spend his first year 


or two in the mission field? 


. Through whom does the foreign missionary most effectively 


work in his evangelistic efforts? 

What principle guides the Board of Foreign Missions in the 
payment of missionaries’ salaries and allowances? 

For what purpose do missionaries use their furloughs? 


CHAPTER III 
FORCES IN OPPOSITION 


The chief forces in opposition to foreign missions 
are the non-Christian religions of the mission fields. 

This statement will be criticized by those who re- 
gard non-Christian religions not as obstructive but 
as parallel forms of religious teaching, with lines of 
truth relatively shorter and less distinct than Chris- 
tianity. They deplore the use of the term false, as 
applied to any religion. They believe in the theory 
of religious evolution, not in special divine revelation. 
They quote certain parts of Paul’s sermon to the 
Athenians: “Whom ye ignorantly worship,” and. “that 
they should seek after the Lord, if happily they might 
feel after him and find him.” They also use the 
twentieth verse of the first chapter of Romans: “The 
invisible things of him from the creation of the world 
are clearly seen, being understood by the things that 
are made, even his eternal power and godhead.” They 
overlook or ignore Paul’s conclusion: “So they are 
without excuse,” and again, “Who changed the truth 
of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the crea- 
ture more than the Creator,” and again, “Who 
changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an 
image like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four- 
footed beasts and creeping things.” Paul held that 
all forms of heathenism show indications of religious 
devolution. 

58 





FORCES IN OPPOSITION 59 


Some modernists admit Buddha, Confucius, Moham- 
med and other teachers of non-Christian religions as 
lesser lights into the temple of the world’s great men 
of religion, giving Christ the chief place but not 
granting him the ,unique distinction of being the 
one, true and perfect revelation of the Heavenly 
Father. In this they follow the example of certain 
philosophers of the first Christian centuries. They 
lay stress on the elements common to Christianity 
and non-Christian religions, and boast of their fair- 
mindedness in making comparisons. It is true that 
there are certain moral precepts which non-Christian 
religions share with Christianity; but in the sphere 
of morality as well as that of religion, non-Chris- 
tianity invariably shows marks of decline. A few 
non-Christian religious teachings and beliefs may 
seem to present similarity with certain Christian 
truths, but on closer examination all these resem- 
blances are clearly surface resemblances. There is 
no essential similarity, for example, between the 
doctrine of the triad of Hinduism—Brahma, Vishnu 
and Siva, and that of the trinity of Christianity— 
Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The idea of the avatars 
of Hinduism, of the popular god Krishna, as an incar- 
nation of Vishnu, is far removed from the Biblical 
teaching of the incarnation of the Son of God in the 
person of Jesus Christ. 

While the Christian missionary must never offer 
or accept compromises with a non-Christian religion, 
lest he undermine the strength and influence of his 
work as a missionary, he should avoid a hostile at- 
titude in his approach to non-Christians as individ- 
uals. Though he be the opponent of the non-Chris- 


60 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


tian religion of his mission field, he is the friend and 
helper, teacher and lover, guide and brother of his 
fellowmen, his fellowsinners, the non-Christians. He 
comes to save them from their sins and errors by the 
preaching and teaching of the gospel truth. He 
comes to persuade them to believe and follow Christ. 
He comes to compel them to come into the kingdom 
of God by the compulsion of truth and love. He comes 
in the spirit of Jesus, “Who when He was reviled, 
reviled not again; when He suffered, threatened not.” 
He comes in the spirit of the more excellent way of 
missionary effort, taught in the thirteenth chapter of 
First Corinthians, written by the first and greatest 
Christian missionary for all missionaries. 

Compelling Christian Convictions.—The foreign 
missionary must have three compelling convictions. 
The first is the fundamental Christian conviction that 
there is only one true religion, which is Christianity. 
There is none other name under heaven given unto 
men, whereby we must be saved, than the name of 
Jesus Christ. Christian faith is the only faith which 
is adequate to meet the needs of all men everywhere. 
This conviction, while uncompromising towards un- 
truth and half-truth, will not make the missionary 
unfriendly toward  serious-minded non-Christians 
nor incapable of finding and valuing all the good that 
can be found in any people. 

The second compelling conviction is the oone erent 
that, whatever the religious faith and moral stand- 
ard of non-Christians may be, they are capable of 
knowing the truth, of believing in Christ and of find- 
ing salvation through Him. No matter how far 
astray or how far down non-Christians may have 





FORCES IN OPPOSITION 61 


gone, the gospel is intended for them also and for 
them all. 

The third compelling conviction is, that it is the 
will of God that all men should be saved and come to 
the knowledge of the truth. Salvation not only is 
possible but it also is provided in Jesus Christ, the 
crucified and risen God-man, Redeemer of the world. 

These convictions safeguard the missionary against 
intolerance and prejudice, encourage him to work 
against the heaviest odds, make and keep him sweet 
and sympathetic, patient and humble, happy and suc- 
cessful. 


THE RELIGIONS OF INDIA 


The religious forces in opposition to Christianity 
in India are Hinduism and Mohammedanism, more 
properly called Islam. 

Modern Hinduism.—Modern Hinduism is the ac- 
cumulated product of three thousand years of re- 
ligious thinking and practice apart from the revela- 
tion of the true God and His word. Hinduism is 
rooted in ancient writings called Vedas, the earliest 
of which, the Rig Veda, is a remarkable collection of 
10,000 verses of ancient lyric poetry, addressed to the — 
principal Aryan gods, Varuna, Indra, Agni, Surya, 
Soma and others. The primitive nature worship of 
the Rig Veda period, probably 1500 to 800 B. C., 
yielded to an elaborate form of ritual, known as 
Brahmanism, which gave prominence to the priest and 
produced a priestly code, the Brahmanas, which were 
written in the seventh century -before Christ. They 
are prosaic directories of worship under the guidance 
of the Brahmins, the priests. Each Brahmana is a 


62 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 
\ 


handbook to one of the Vedas and was meant to teach 
the priest to do his part in the worship of the gods. 
Besides sacrificial directions and explanations, these 
books also contain a great deal of mythology, phil- 
ology, literary lore, grammar, theology, mysticism and 
magic. They are said to be the most tedious, absurd 
and uninteresting books in the world. 

Later than the Brahmanas are the Upanishads, 
books which were written as conversational specula- 
tions on the nature of religion. These form the 
foundation and starting point of India’s great 
Vedantic system of religious thought. One of the 
books, the Baghavadgita, is an epic which deserves 
a passing notice. For well nigh two thousand years 
it has swayed the mind and heart of India. It has 
attracted the attention and admiration of scholars in 
Europe and America. It is perhaps more read and 
studied by educated Hindus today than any other book 
of religion. In it the Hindu may be said to call for a 
Saviour, a saviour incarnate for the good of man, in- 
carnate to give a clear revelation of the will of God. 

Caste.—Institutional Brahmanism introduced the 
most compact and tyrannical system of social life and 
customs, that the world has ever known—the sys- 
tem of caste. This system continues to be the para- 
mount practical feature of the religion of the Hindus. 
The divisions and subdivisions of caste are innumer- 
able. In general the traditional divisions are: 1. The 
Brahmins or priests; 2. Kshattryas or warriors; 3. 
Vaisyas or merchants and agriculturalists; 4. Sudras 
or artisans. Below these are the Panchamas, the 
“depressed classes,” the outcasts. The members of 
one caste keep themselves socially separate from all 


—_—_ 


FORCES IN OPPOSITION 63 


other castes, eating, drinking, living and laboring, 
marrying, dying and being buried in their respective 
castes. To break caste is the most grievous of sins, 
for which abject and carefully prescribed atonement 
must be made. The caste system for ages has 
strangled all personal ambition, choked aspiration 
and held back progress in India. It has made unity 
of thought, purpose and action for the common good 
practically impossible, and has fostered suspicion, 
jealousy and selfishness. Above all it has preserved 
the social superiority and influence of the priests as 
the religious autocrats of India, and has been one of 
the great impediments to the work of Christian 
missions. 

Buddhism.—Jainism and Buddhism, which arose in 
the sixth century B. C., were reactions against cere- 
monial Brahmanism. The Jains are noted as temple 
builders and have carried to an extreme the doctrine 
of the preservation of animal life. Almost every city 
in western India, where the Jains are found, has its 
animal hospital. In the temple at Kutch five thousand 
rats were kept and fed as an act of reverence. More 
than two-fifths of the Jains live in Bombay and its 
native states, including Baroda. They are mostly 
traders, merchants or bankers, wealthy, intelligent 
and in some respects progressive. 

The founder of Buddhism was Gautama, the 
Buddha, that is, the Enlightened One. He was a 
devout prince and an earnest seeker after truth. He 
is said to have become suddenly illuminated as he 
sat one day beneath the sacred bo tree at Buddh 
Gaya. He died about 477 B. C. The greatest im- 
petus was given to Buddhism in India by King Asoka 


64 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


in the third century before Christ. He did for Budd- 
hism what Constantine did for Christianity. He 
organized it as a state religion. He assembled a coun- 
cil to determine the faith, issued edicts promulgating 
its principles, established a state department to en- 
courage its growth, sent out missionaries to preach 
its doctrines and created an authorized version of 
the Buddhist scriptures. Buddhism has practically 
disappeared from the land of its birth, but its in- 
fluence is deeply imbedded in modern Hinduism, and 
it still maintains itself as a distinct religion in Ceylon, 
Burma, Tibet, China and Japan. 

Buddhism may be briefiy defined as a system of 
ethical self-culture and negative philosophy. Gautama 
had no place in his religion for a supreme being. His 
teachings began and ended with man. Man unaided 
by any superior being may work out his destiny by 
his own powers. Yet man’s need of an object of 
reverence and worship, and his tendency to seek ex- 
ternal supernatural aid has led to the elevation of 
Gautama into deity, as an object of worship. There 
are today more images of' Buddha in a pagoda in 
Burma than there are idols in any Hindu temple in 
India. 

Doctrines of Modern Hinduism.—The outstanding 
teachings of modern Hinduism, which is an eclectic 
religion, derived from the above named and other 
sources, are: 

1. The repeated appearances of deities in human 
form. These appearances are called avatars. This 
doctrine, as it relates especially to the gods Siva and 
Vishnu, has produced the modern cults of Saivism, 
Vaishnavism, and Saktiism. The devotees of these 





FORCES IN OPPOSITION 65 


cults indicate their allegiance by characteristic marks 
on their foreheads and bodies. A mark in the form 
of a trident is universally worn by the devotees of 
Vishnu. Three horizontal lines drawn across the 
forehead and other parts of the body denote the 
worshipers of Siva. Tantric sects use the swastika. 
Saktiism is the worship of the generative force ‘as 
typified in goddesses, especially the wife of Siva in 
her many forms and characters. 

2. Pantheism, the doctrine of the divinity of the 
universe as such and as a whole. Hindu pantheism 
holds that man and the material and spiritual world 
are manifestations of an ultimate, impersonal It, ab- 
solute and unknowable. It denies the existence of a 
personal God. 

8. Polytheism and its inevitable idolatry. Hindu- 
ism most conspicuously manifests itself in the popular 
worship of millions of deities made in the forms of 
human beings, of animals of all kinds, of birds and 
creeping things, of imaginary beings, grotesque in 
appearance, partly human and partly animal. The 
elephant-headed god, Ganesha, and the monkey god, 
Hanuman, are popular idols. This hydra-headed poly- 
theism is the most offensive feature of modern 
Hinduism. 

4. The doctrine of illusion (Maya). For all 
Hindus the highest aim in life is to be freed from 
the illusions of mind and body. These illusions create 
the sorrows and misery of life. The path of redemp- 
tion is fourfold: By works or the observance of ritual 
and caste rules; by faith or devotion to a personal 
deity; by ascetic rigor (Yoga); and by knowledge, 
which is the final way of emancipation. 


66 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


5. The doctrine of Karma and transmigration. 
Karma is the law of retributive justice according to 
merit. This law is said to pursue the soul through 
millions of rebirths, requiring that the “uttermost 
farthing” of demerit be paid. Each soul in its rebirths 
“oats the fruit of the previous life, of which it neither 
remembers nor knows anything.” 

6. The reabsorption of the individual soul into the 
all-soul. After endless reincarnations the soul is re- 
ceived into Brahm, involving a final state of absolute 
unconsciousness and impersonality This is Nirvana. 

Modern Reform Movements.—The reform move- 
ments of the present day contribute to the restless- 
ness of the popular mind in matters of faith. They 
reveal the fact that modern life has thrust upon the 
Indian people a bewildering number of new religious 
ideas and ideals. Some of these movements, such as 
the Brahmo Samaj, are animated by Christian prin- 
ciples and ambitions, though clinging to many of the 
ancestral forms of religion. Others, like the Arya 
Samaj, are less radical in their spirit of reform 
and are opposed to Christianity. All of them, how- 
ever, are a serious menace to orthodox Hinduism. 
Theosophy, which accepts some of the fundamental — 
principles of Brahmanism, assumes an attitude of © 
uncompromising hostility to Christianity, while it 
seeks to reduce all religions to the ashes of such 
elements as they may seem to have in common. 

A missionary who spent a lifetime in India, Dr. — 
John F. Jones, author of “Krishna or Christ,” and — 
other books and pamphlets on Hinduism, says: “Not a — 
belief in doctrines but conformity to certain customs — 
and institutions enables one positively to call himself | 


FORCES IN OPPOSITION 67 


a Hindu. There are only two absolutely necessary 
qualifications for membership in Hindu society today 
subordination to the Brahmin and membership in 
an organized caste. In other respects the Hindu has 
very great freedom. Among other characteristic 
features of Hindu society are a belief in the divine 
origin and authority of the Vedas and a reverence for 
sacred animals, especially the cow.” 

Islam.—India has a larger Moslem population than 
Persia, Arabia, Turkey and Egypt combined. Of the 
sixty-two millions of Moslems within its borders, 
twenty-five and a half millions are found in Bengal, 
fourteen millions in the Punjab and Northwest Fron- 
tier Province, nearly seven millions in the United 
Provinces, over four millions in Bombay and four 
millions in South India. The Mohammedans of North 
India are mostly Sunnih or orthodox. The sect of the 
Sh-ahs does not number more than five millions in 
all India. 

Moslems divide their religion into two parts: Iman 
or dogma and Din or ritual. Under the head of dogma 
come the six articles of faith concerning God (Allah), 
angels, sacred books, prophets, the day of judgment 
and predestination. Dr. Samuel M. Zwemer in 
“Islam: A Challenge to Faith,” says that “the concep- 
tion of God is negative. Absolute sovereignty and 
ruthless omnipotence are his chief attributes, while 
his character is impersonal. The Christian truth that 
God is love, is to the learned Moslem blasphemy and 
to the ignorant an enigma.” 

Islam teaches that there are three kinds of angels: 
the good angels, the jinns or genii, either good or 
evil, and satan with his demoniac host. 


68 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


It has four sacred books: the Law of Moses, the 
Psalms of David, the Gospel of Jesus and the Koran. 
Orthodox Moslems hold that all but the Koran now 
exist in a corrupted form and their precepts have 
been displaced by the final book given to the great 
prophet Mohammed. The Koran is a little smaller in 
bulk than the New Testament. It has 114 chapters 
bearing fanciful titles, such as the cow, the bee, 
women, the ant, the spider. It contains a jumble of 
verses concerning law and legends, prayers and im- 
precations without chronological order, logical se- 
quence or rhetorical climax. It is full of historical 
errors, contains monstrous fables, is full of Super- 
stition and teaches slavery, polygamy, divorce, re- 
ligious intolerance, the seclusion and degradation of 
women. 

Many Old Testament personages are revered as 
prophets of God, and Jesus Christ is classed as a 
prophet; but Mohammed is the first and greatest of 
all prophets. 

The day of judgment occupies a large place in the 
creed of Islam and the Koran. Paradise is a garden 
of sensual delight. 

The predestination of the Moslem creed is pure 
fatalism, which denies all free agency in man and 
declares that he is necessarily constrained by the force 
of God’s eternal and unchangeable decree to act as he 
does. Religion is Islam, which means resignation. 

La tlaha Illa’llahu Mohammad Rasulu-llah, which 
means, There is no God but Allah; Mohammed is 
the prophet of God, is repeated on every occasion by 
Moslems throughout the world. 

In the observance of their ritual Moslems pray five 


ee — 


FORCES IN OPPOSITION 69 


times each day in Arabic formulas, at dawn, just after 
high noon, two hours before sunset, at sunset, and 
two hours after sunset. They fast during the month 
of Ramadan. They give legal alms (sakat) amount- 
ing to about one-fortieth of their income. They un- 
dertake a journey to Mecca in Arabia in vast num- 
bers from all parts of the world at the time of the 
great pilgrimage (Hajj). 

The Missionary’s Attitude.—In his attitude towards 
Hindus, Mohammedans and other non-Christians, the 
missionary must avoid on the one hand the extreme 
of denunciatory attack, which alienates, and, on the 
other hand, overemphasis on resemblances with Chris- 
tianity, which are more apparent than real. His 
message must be a positive explanation of Christian 
truth so adapted as to appeal to the non-Christians, 
whom he meets, and to win them for Christ. It will 
win them if presented in the spirit of love and not of 
condescension to inferiors. For the Western mission- 
ary today to convey the message of the gospel in the 
manner and with the emphasis which India needs for 
its full acceptance, is a task requiring great skill, wis- 
dom and grace. 


THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN 


Turning to the religions of Japan, we characterize 
briefly: Shintoism, Confucianism and Buddhism. 

Shintoism.—Shinto, “the way of the gods,” is 
Japan’s most primitive and characteristic religion. It 
is a mixture of emperor, ancestor, and nature wor- 
ship. Its gods are the imperial line and innumerable 
ancestors, whose lives were made memorable by great 
deeds. Its only moral code is loyalty to these. It has 


70 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 
no teaching concerning a future life. It is a non- 
ethical religion without a consciousnes of guilt and 
lacking an urge toward personal virtue. Its prayers 
are for the warding off of calamity and evil, security 
for the household, bountiful harvests and success. 

The Japanese have erected shrines on every high 
hill, surrounded by magnificent cedar or camphor 
trees. At the foot of a crag or the approach to a 
waterfall or around a great tree, reverent fingers 
twist straw ropes in token of their worship of the 
beautiful, the grand or the extraordinary in nature. 
In Japanese mythology the sun goddess, Amaterasu, 
is exalted as the source of life and food, as well as 
the ancestress of the imperial house. 

Shintoism glorifies simplicity and racial unity. 
“The shrines with their shingled roofs, simple lines 
and straight-grained woods, bare of ornament, foster 
simplicity in the worshiper. Before each shrine there 
is a jar of holy water, into which the worshiper dips 
his fingers as a symbol of the purification of his life 
from defilement.’’ The way of salvation for the 
Shintoist is the assertion of native, natural purity, 
following one’s own instincts, and loyalty to the 
emperor. 

Confucianism is a system of ethics and civics com- 
bined. It teaches faith in the order of the universe. 
Confucius once said, “Honor the gods, but keep far 
from them.” His central idea was man in his right 
relations to parents, superiors, brothers and friends. 

Bushido, “the way of the knight,” based on Con- 
fucianism, exalts the warrior ideals of Japan, and is 
an important factor in the ethical thought and life of 
many Japanese. 


FORCES IN OPPOSITION 71 


Buddhism.—Japanese Buddhism is different from 
Buddhism in India. In Japan it is divided into twelve 
main sects. One sect (Zen) exalts contemplation and 
intuition, self-reliance and _ self-mastery. Another 
(Shin) offers salvation by repetition of the name of 
Amida, the all-pitiful one. The Nichiren sect is pan- 
theistic and teaches that man unaided can work out 
his own salvation; but it has attached itself to the 
Shinto belief in the rice god, Inari, who is supposed 
to punish those who offend him by inflicting fox- 
possession. 

The philosophy of Buddhism is elaborate and deep- 
going, but it has no personal god with whom man can 
talk and walk and work. It has no everliving, ever- 
present saviour, to whom the soul burdened with sin 
‘ean look for forgiveness and salvation. It is a religion 
of despair and negation. It looks upon the world as 
a place of pain, an abode of evil, a source of unending 
sorrow. To it life is a round of unceasing rebirths, 
old age, disease and death. Both the world and the 
individual in it move in cycles, going forth only to 
come back to the places from which they started. 
History always repeats itself. The individual has no 
rights and no liberty, but is forever doomed to bond- 
age on the wheel of destiny. There is no personal ex- 
istence in any form. Release from existence is 
heaven. A remerging into nature, the first great 
Cause, is the goal of all life. Japanese Buddhism has 
no uplifting power, no saving grace, no ennobling 
virtue. 

The Christian missionary in Japan must be in- 
tellectually alert, sympathetic and considerate, as- 
suming the attitude of a friend and companion. He 


72 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


must, however, be loyal to the truth as it is in Christ 
Jesus and lead a consistent Christian life. He must 
never stoop to ridicule. He must learn to work with 
the Japanese Christian leaders in the fullest coopera- 
tion. In facing the unusual religious conditions of 
Japan today, he must guard against creating the im- 
pression that Christianity is solely a system of 
thought, on the one hand, or on the other hand only 
a system of ethics. The leadership of the missionary 
must be of a spiritual type and must rest upon his 
knowledge and impartation of the great truths of the 
Bible, manifested in his life and conversation. 


THE RELIGION OF INTERIOR LIBERIA 


Animism.—The religion of the primitive inland 
tribes of Liberia, Africa, is animism, which is a belief 
in spirits, magic, fetishism, amulets and taboo. 
Animism is so complex and multiform, that no attempt 
to describe it in a few words can be adequate. The 
mind of the animist is constantly occupied with fear 
of the thousand and one evil-minded spirits, imps and 
demons around him, who inhabit and control any- 
thing and everything, and who would crush him, if 
they could. They are supposed to be constantly seek- 
ing opportunities to do so. The fetish, the charm, the 
amulet, the medicine-making, the sand-playing, the 
religious rites and ceremonies are all attempts to 
cajole or appease, to cheat or to conquer the trouble- 
some spirits. The underlying idea of all animism is 
the idea of spirits being in natural objects, working 
in natural phenomena and forces, and possessing men. 


FORCES IN OPPOSITION 73 


From this notion has arisen a whole series of beliefs 
about the living and the dead, the state of existence 
of the departed and their relations to the living. In 
some if not all forms of animism, a vague belief in 
a Supreme Spirit has persisted, but he is seldom if 
ever worshiped, being regarded as too far away and 
too inaccessible to need attention. Our missionaries 
in interior Libera have not yet been able to give us 
sufficient information concerning the peculiarities of 
the animism of the inland tribes, and a vast field of 
first-hand information concerning this primitive 
religion still lies uninvestigated. 


UN-CHRISTIAN LIVES AND PRINCIPLES IN OPPOSITION 


Besides the non-Christian religions in our mission 
fields there are other forces in opposition to foreign 
missions, such as the non-Christian lives of nominal 
Christians in non-Christian lands, the un-Christian 
principles which sometimes animate Christian indi- 
viduals, groups and governments, and the glaring in- 
consistencies and failures of some Christians in our 
own land. It is the task of the home Church to over- 
come these opposing forces within its own gates not 
only for its own sake but also for the sake of the Chris- 
tian conquest of the non-Christian world. 

Dr. Arthur J. Brown in his book “Rising Churches 
in Non-Christian Lands,” presents a severe indict- 
ment against many traders, travelers and officials, 
who outnumber missionaries in Asia and Africa and 
who by their conduct create against Christians an in- 


74 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


discriminate hostility. Meanwhile the men whose 
evil example is doing so much to prejudice the good 
name of Christianity abroad are the very ones who 
sneer at the Christians and loudly assert that foreign 
missions are a failure. It severely tries the new faith 
of native Christians to see white men openly do the 
things that the Bible forbids them to do—swear, get 
drunk, gamble, cheat, profane the Lord’s Day, insult 
women. 

The great war was a frightful illustration of the 
fact that nations are not Christian, although many 
of their citizens may be. In practically all Western 
lands international relationships are still based, as a 
rule, upon desire for commercial, territorial or 
political aggrandizement. Gladstone said that the his- 
tory of governments is the most immoral part of 
history. 

The vice-mayor of Tokio during a visit to the United 
States wrote: “The young people in my country can- 
not help seeing that Christians in America care most 
about material things, not about the things of the 
spirit; that there is little reverence in America and 
many evil conditions. That leads them to wonder if 
Christianity is really as good as the missionaries 
say.” 

Regarded from this point of view there is some 
truth in the saying: ‘‘Christianize America and Amer- 
ica will Christianize the world.” The further and 
fuller Christianization of nominal Christian lands and 
peoples is, therefore, a serious foreign mission 
problem. 


se 


C COTA 


ab 


12. 
13. 
14. 
15. 
16. 


te 
18. 


19. 


FORCES IN OPPOSITION 75 


QUESTIONS 
The Religions of Our Mission Fields 


._ What are the prevailing non-Christian religions in our 


mission fields? 


. What was Paul’s attitude towards non-Christian religions? 
. What should be the attitude of Christian missionaries 


today towards non-Christian religions and towards non- 
Christian individuals? 


. Mention several compelling convictions of Christian mis- 


sionaries. 


_ What are the two great religions of India today? 


What sacred books are revered above all others by Hindus? 


. What system of social life did Brahmanism introduce? 
. Describe this system. 

. Who was Gautama? © ; 

10. 


Mention and explain some of the teachings of modern 
Hinduism. 

Why must Islam be included as one of the religions of 
India? 

Which are the five chief doctrines of Islam? 

Explain each of these doctrines. 

What are the characteristics of Moslem ritual? 

Which is Japan’s most primitive and characteristic religion? 
Briefly define Shintoism, Confucianism and Buddhism in 
Japan. 

What is Animism? 

What other influences besides non-Christian religions are 
opposing forces to Christian missions in foreign countries? 
How does the saying, “Christianize America and America 
will Christianize the world,” apply to foreign missions? 


CHAPTER IV 
FORCES IN THE FIELD 


The religions of the world today are divided into 
two classes: Christian and non-Christian. Thirty-four 
per cent or about one-third of the population of the 
earth is Christian, the other two-thirds is non-Chris- 
tian. There are three general divisions of the Christian 
religion and three of the non-Christian religions. 

Christian Groups.—The smallest group of Chris- 
tians is that of the Greek or Eastern Catholic Church, 
with a constituency of 121,000,000.*. The lands which 
are predominantly influenced by Greek Catholicism 
are Russia, Rumania, Bulgaria and Greece. The 
next largest group is that of the Protestant Church, 
with 167,000,000 members. Great Britain, Holland, 
Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, 
Finland, the United States of America, Canada and 
the Christianized parts of Australia and South Africa 
are predominantly Protestant. The largest Chris- 
tian group is that of the Roman Catholic Church with 
its center in Rome and its head in the pope. There 
are 288,000,000 Roman Catholics in the world, form- 
ing the larger portion of the population of Italy, 
Spain, Portugal, France, Austria, Ireland, Mexico, 
Central and South America. The followers of Jesus 
Christ throughout the world constitute the largest 
religious division. There are 587,000,000 Christians. 

Non-Christian Groups.—The three non-Christian 


1World Almanac Statistics. 


76 


FORCES IN THE FIELD 77 


forms of religion are Judaism, Mohammedanism, 
more properly called Islam, and Paganism. The 
Jews, who for thousands of years have held a prom- 
inent part on the world’s stage and are scattered 
all over the earth, number only 15,000,000. 

Islam, with 227,000,000 adherents, had its origin 
in Arabia and spread eastward into Persia, Meso- 
potamia, Afghanistan, Beluchistan, China, India and 
the East Indies, and northward and westward into 
Syria, Palestine, North Africa and Europe. The 
faith of Islam may be almost entirely encompassed 
within the two tenets: “There is no God but God 
(Allah) and Mohammed is his prophet.” 

All non-Christians except Jews and Mohammedans 
are included under the general term of paganism, 
which embraces , 
more than one- 
half of the pop- 
ulation of the 
world or 874,-. 
000,000. Pagan- 
ism predomin- 
ates in Japan, 
China, Siam, 
Burma, India, 
most of the is- 
lands of the East 
Indies, and the 


larger part of 


Australia, the THE RELIGIOUS DIVISIONS OF THE WORLD. 
CHRISTIANITY EMBRACES 34.2 PER CENT. 
central and 


south-central portions of Africa, and the central parts 
of South America. 





78 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


The graph on the preceding page shows the rel- 
ative strength of the religions of the earth. 

Mission Business.—It has .been estimated that 
$45,000,000 a year are being spent by the Protestant 
Churches of America and Europe in their foreign mis- 
sion enterprises,’ that $400,000,000 have already been 
invested by them in mission property throughout the 
world, and that 40,000 men and women are engaged 
in this enterprise in non-Christian lands. Add to this 
estimate what the Roman and Greek Catholic 
Churches are doing, statistics for which are not 
readily available, and it is no exaggeration to say 
that modern Christian missionary work is the largest 
as well as the most comprehensive effort of the 
Church. 


A GENERAL SURVEY OF OUR FOREIGN FIELDS 


The five non-Christian peoples to whom the foreign 
missionaries of the United Lutheran Church in 


1 The Secretaries of the International Missionary Council have obtained the 
following figures of contributions for foreign missions received by the societies 
cooperating in the national missionary organizations that are represented 
in the Council. Only funds for recurring expenditures in the maintenance 
of missionary work are included. All capital expenditures for property and 
sums spent on work among people professing the Christian religion, have 
been excluded. An annual expenditure of about $45,000,000 in obedience to 
the great commission of Jesus Christ is surely a clear evidence of the vitality 
and missionary zeal of Protestant Christianity. 


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Switzerland | (8) Societies) fccccc..2..ccscscososssnceoncesonsovenese 249,177 
Africa (4 Reformed Church Synods) .....ccccceseeeeeses 322,942 


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FORCES IN THE FIELD 19 


America are preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ 
represent the great racial divisions of mankind. 

The foreign mission flag of our Church, therefore, 
contains all the colors of the complexions of the 
human race: brown, black, yellow, red and white. 

For our Church the brown field in this flag stands 
for the Telugus and Oriyas in India; the yellow field, 
for the Japanese and Chinese; the black field, for the 
Kpeles and allied tribes in Liberia, West Africa; the 
red field, for the Arawak Indians in British Guiana, 
who are related to 
our North Ameri- 
can Indians. The 
white field stands 
for the home 
‘Church, the circle 
of missionary influ- 
ence and effort. The 
Spanish speaking 
inhabitants of 
Buenos Aires, 
Argentina, South 
America, among whom we have missionaries, are 
nominal Roman Catholics. 

Location of our Foreign Fields.—The five mission 
fields of our Church are located in the Madras Pres- 
idency of India; in the islands of Kyushu and Hondo, 
Japan; in Liberia, West Africa; in British Guiana 
and Buenos Aires, South America and in the Shantung 
province of China. The geographical diversity of 
these fields is strikingly interesting. 

India is a large peninsula, which juts out from 
the southeastern part of the continent of Asia. In 

























































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































FOREIGN MISSION FLAG 


80 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


area it is about one-half the size of the United States 
of America; in population it is three times larger. 

Japan is a group of four large and a thousand or 
more small islands, which lie off the eastern coast 
of Asia and have an area about the size of the state of 
California, with a population of 60,000,000. If the 
islands of Japan were transferred to tthe eastern 
coast of the United States, they would extend from 
Maine on the north to Cuba on the south, with Tokio, 
the capital, opposite Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. 

Liberia, the only negro republic in the world, is a 
small country on the west coast of Africa, as large 
as the state of Ohio, with a population estimated at 
2,000,000. 

British Guiana and Buenos Aires, Argentine, are 
three thousand miles apart. The one is a small trop- 
ical colony of Great Britain, located in the northern 
part of South America; the other is the largest city 
in the republic of Argentine, with a population of 
nearly two millions. 

Our Foreign Mission Rivers.—The location of our 
foreign mission fields is facilitated by the fact that 
every one of them except Japan is associated with a 
river. The Rajahmundry field in India lies along the 
banks of the Godavery river; the Guntur field, south 
of the Kistna river. These are two of the important 
rivers of India, which are regarded by all Hindus as 
sacred streams. Our field in Liberia is bisected by 
the St. Paul River, the second largest river in the 
country, and is bounded on the north by the Loffa 
and on the south by the St. John River. The out- 
stations in our British Guiana mission field are lo- 
cated on the Berbice River, and Buenos Aires is on 


FORCES IN THE FIELD 81 


the La Plata River. These are our foreign mission 
rivers. 

Latitude of Fields—Three of our foreign fields are 
located in the tropics. The India mission lies between 
16 degrees and 18 degrees north latitude, on the same 
parallel as Porto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Liberia 
and British Guiana are each about 5 degrees above 
the equator. The Japan mission and Buenos Aires 
are on opposite sides of the equator, the one about 
383 degrees north, the other about 35 degrees south 
latitude. When it is winter in Japan and the United 
States of America, it is summer in Argentine. Our 
China mission field in the Shantung province is on 
the 36th degree north latitude on a parallel line with 
southern California and southern Virginia. 

Travel Routes——Missionaries bound for India 
travel by the shortest route to Europe, through the 
Mediterranean, Red and Arabian seas to Bombay and 
then cross the peninsula by rail, or around Cape 
Comorin to Colombo, Ceylon, and then across to the 
mainland, where they entrain for Madras and Guntur 
or Rajahmundry. By making close connections in 
Europe the journey lasts about six weeks. Those who 
go to Japan or China cross our North American con- 
tinent to the Pacific coast, where they take a steam- 
ship for some port in Japan or China. The entire 
journey by land and sea consumes about four weeks. 
To reach Liberia our missionaries may take a direct 
steamer from New York to Monrovia but prefer to 
break the monotony of such a long sea voyage by stop- 
ping over in Europe. Either way the voyage lasts 
from four to six weeks. British Guiana is reached 
in fifteen days by boat from New York through the 


82 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


waters of the West Indies; Buenos Aires in about a 
month by a sea voyage southward through the Atlantic 
Ocean across the Equator and along the coast of South 
America. 

Sociological Contrasts.—The sociological contrasts 
between the Christian converts in our foreign fields 
are noteworthy. In India the majority of Christians 
have been won from the depressed classes, commonly 
called outcasts and known in India as Panchamas. 
The caste designations of those who have responded 
most extensively to the preaching of the Gospel are 
Malas and Madigas. They are poor and ignorant 
people, who for ages have occupied the lowest places 
in Indian society. As yet not many of the middle 
and high castes have accepted holy baptism, but the 
influence of Christianity is gradually extending to 
these classes in many ways. 

In Japan most of the converts are from the middle 
and student classes, especially the latter. While in 
India there are frequent mass movements, which 
bring many thousands into the Church, whole villages 
sometimes being baptized at one time, in Japan con- 
verts are made more slowly by individual evangelistic 
effort. The influence of the Japanese converts, how- 
ever, is relatively greater and more effective indi- 
vidually, because of their better education and higher 
social standing. 

In Liberia the mission work formerly was largely 
confined to the Americo-Liberians, the descendants 
of freed slaves, living along the coast. Within recent 
years our missionaries have made earnest efforts to 
reach the primitive tribes of aboriginal negroes in 
the interior. In 1923 Zozo, a station near the bound- 


FORCES IN THE FIELD 83 


ary line of French Guinea, was added to the two other 
interior stations, Sanoghie and Kpolopele. 

The non-Christians reached in British Guiana are 
red-skinned South American Indians and indentured 
East Indians and their descendants, who came from 
that part of British India where the Hindi language 
is spoken. 

Financial Forces.—The foreign mission work of the 
United Lutheran 
Church in America 
now requires an 
annual expendi- 
ture of over 
$800,000. The bud- 
get adopted by the 
Board of Foreign 
Missions for the 
year 1923, includ- 
ing missionaries’ 
salaries, appropri- | 


94 CENTS 
GO DIRECTLY 
TO THE WORK 

ABROAD 


ated $253,000 for 
the India Mission, 
which is nearly 60 
per cent of the 





50¢ 
YOUR FOREIGN MISSION DOLLAR 
3 7/10 PER CENT FOR HOME ADMINIS- 
TRATION; 2 3/10 PER CENT FOR LITER- 
ATURE AND PUBLICITY; 94 PER CENT 
FOR THE FOREIGN FIELDS. 


total. foreign ex- 
penditures. The Japan mission got $118,000, or about 
25 per cent; the Liberia mission $44,500, or 10 per 
cent; Buenos Aires $26,000; British Guiana $4,700. 
The congregation in New Amsterdam receives an in- 
come of about two thousand dollars a year from prop- 
erty and funds left in trust by the original founders. 
Its funds are invested in government bonds and one 
hundred shares of the Royal Bank of Canada, 


84 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


The home base expenditures for administration, 
literature and publicity, in the amount of $44,000, 
are about six per cent of the entire expenditure. The 
graph on the preceding page shows how the money 
was spent. 

While $525,000 was the sum fixed by the United 
Lutheran Church as the annual apportionment during 
the years 1921-23, less than 65 per cent of this ap- 
portioned amount was paid into the treasury. As a 
consequence the Board of Foreign Missions continued 
to suffer financially on account of an indebtedness 
carried over from the first biennium of the merger. 
To relieve its financial embarrassment and to provide 
for imperative advance work in all foreign fields a 
special appeal was made in 1923 under the title of 
the Foreign Mission Forward Fund to secure at least 
$300,000. 

To the $350,000 realized from apportionment pay- 
ments, the Women’s Missionary Society added $150,- 
000, one-fifth of the total income, designated for the 
support of women’s work abroad; and the balance of 
the Board’s income was received through contribu- 
tions for special purposes, for the support of foreign 
mission pastors and proteges in foreign fields. 

Missionary Forces.—More important than the finan- 
cial forces in the foreign mission enterprise are 
the missionary forces. Money contributions are a 
substitute for personal service. With a confirmed 
membership of over 800,000 the United Lutheran 
Church in America has 175 missionaries in its over- 
seas service, an average of 4,500 members at home 
contributing for every missionary serving abroad. 

Number of Missionaries.—The India mission em- 


FORCES IN THE FIELD 85 


ploys nearly sixty per cent of the missionary forces 
or 115 missionaries, of whom 80 are women—wives 
of missionaries or single women. Some wives of mis- 
sionaries are placed in independent charge of mission 
work and all of them exert more or less missionary 
influence in and through their homes. Of the 35 
missionaries at work in the Japan mission 21 are 
women, six of whom are single women. Thirty mis- 
sionaries are serving in our Liberia mission, of whom 
19 are women—nine single women and ten wives of 
missionaries. In Buenos Aires there are three or- 
dained missionaries, of whom two are married; in 
the British Guiana Mission one ordained man and his 
wife. The wives of missionaries placed in independ- 
ent charge of mission work have the right of voice 
and vote in the organized mission; otherwise they 
have the right of voice only. 

Besides ordained missionaries unordained men are 
employed in two of our missions. One in India is a 
physician, one a teacher in the college and two are 
agricultural missionaries. In Liberia two are phy- 
sicians, one a teacher, one a builder, one an engineer 
and one an agriculturalist. Their standing and salary 
are the same as those of ordained men. 

Native Forces.—Not only foreign missionaries but 
also native workers must be counted in the mission- 
ary forces. Indeed, the success of any mission de- 
pends largely upon the number, consecration and ef- 
ficiency of its native workers, whose testimony con- 
cerning Christ and Christianity to their fellow 
nationals is of the profoundest and most far-reaching 
importance. On account of its longer history and 
greater number of converts the India mission excels 


86 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


in the number of men and women employed as teach- 
ers, evangelists, catechists and pastors. It has 3,000 
native workers of all grades; the Japan mission has 
20, the Liberia mission 26, the Buenos Aires mission 
12, and the British Guiana mission six. To produce 
these native missionary forces training schools of 
various sorts and especially theological seminaries are 
essential mission institutions. 

The human forces of men and money at work in 
our foreign mission fields grow stronger as the work 
develops in response to the increasing missionary 
zeal and effort of the home Church. Primarily, how- 
ever, the success of the missionary enterprise does 
not depend on the human forces of man power and 
money power, but on the divine forces of Christ’s 
almighty presence in His Church and of the mission- 
ary influence of the Holy Spirit upon the lives and 
resources of Christ’s disciples. 


INDIA 


India, the magnet for adventurers of every race 
since time immemorial, was first invaded about two 
thousand years before Christ, in the time of Abraham, 
by bands of Aryans who penetrated the passes of 
the Himalaya Mountains. As these early invasions 
increased in frequency and force the aborigines were 
driven southward into the hot plains of the peninsula 
and there formed the stock of the present Dravid- 
ians and the still more primitive hill tribes. 

India was probably known to the Jews in the days 
of David and Solomon and to the Pheenicians in the 
reign of Hiram, king of Tyre, as the land of Ophir, 


FORCES IN THE FIELD 87 


the land of gold, silver, ivory, apes and peacocks; and 
if Ophir and India are identical, this wonderful land 
made a rich contribution to the building of the tem- 
ple of Jehovah at Jerusalem. 

Three hundred and twenty-seven years before 
Christ, Alexander the Great invaded India at the 
head of his mighty army of Grecians; but the heat 
of the tropics was a more powerful enemy than the 
Indian armies, and he withdrew from the country, 
not, however, ‘without having founded some cities 
during his brief stay, of which the present city of 
Haidarabad is one. 

Early Christian Missions. — Christian tradition 
claims that Thomas, one of the twelve apostles of 
Christ, planted Christianity in India in the first cen- 
tury. There is still a considerable group of Syrian 
Christians in the native state of Travancore, on the 
west coast, numbering about one-fifth of the entire 
Christian population of the peninsula, who call them- 
selves Thomas Christians. A more trustworthy tra- 
dition connects their origin with Thomas, bishop of 
Edessa, in the year 345 A. D. Many of them now 
owe allegiance to the pope, and others are under a 
bishop consecrated for them by the patriarch of 
Antioch. 

In the year 1000 A. D. India fell under the sway 
of Islam and Moslems ruled it for over 750 years. 
Under the Mogul kings some of the finest buildings in 
India were erected, great mosques and splendid 
tombs, such as the unrivaled Taj Mahal at Agra. 
Today there are actually more followers of the false 
prophet in India than in any other country on earth. 

Six years after Columbus discovered America 


88 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


Vasco da Gama, the Portuguese adventurer, in 1498, 
reached the shore of India, the land which Columbus 
endeavored to find but never reached. The discovery 
of India rather than that of America fired the mis- 
Sionary zeal of the Roman Catholic Church. Francis 
Xavier went to India in 1543, and for nearly two 
hundred years Jesuits and other Roman Catholic 
priests and monks were the only Christian mission- 
aries in the land. Today the papacy claims about 
42 per cent of the entire Christian population of the 
peninsula. 

Protestant Missions.—Protestant missionary work 
was begun by two Lutheran missionaries at Tran- 
quebar in 1706. Bartholomew Ziegenbalg and Hein- 
rich Pluetschau, educated at the Halle institutions, 
which furnished Henry Melchior Muhlenberg to the 
Lutheran Church in America, were called and com- 
missioned by the king of Denmark to preach the 
gospel to the inhabitants of ,his Danish colony in 
South India. Ziegenbalg made a good beginning. 
Concerning the trials and problems, history and suc- 
cess of the Danish-Halle Mission, of which Christian 
Frederick Schwartz was the outstanding missionary, 
one could write a separate book. 

In 1798, eighty-seven years after Ziegenbalg, Wil- 
liam Carey, the Baptist cobbler and preacher, pastor 
of the little church at Kettering, England, expected 
great things from God and undertook great things 
for God, when he went to India as a foreign mission- 
ary. He landed at Serampore, another Danish set- 
tlement, because the East India Company would not 
permit his entrance into the great city of Calcutta. 
In 18138 this company removed its restrictions against 


ee ee a 


FORCES IN THE FIELD 89 


missionary work, and since that time Protestant mis- 
sions have made rapid progress in every part of India. 

The Government of India.—The East India Com- 
pany of England through its vigorous and successful 
trading posts in many parts of the peninsula out- 
stripped competitive French, Portuguese, Dutch and 
Danish efforts of a similar character, and in 1850, 
after the famous Sepoy mutiny, the government of 
India was transferred to the crown of Great Britain. 
India now represents one-seventh of the territory 
and three-fourths of the population of the British 
Empire in the world. The seven provinces of the 
Punjab, United Provinces, Bombay, Madras, Bengal, 
Eastern Bengal, Burma and Assam, are directly un- 
der British rule, while the kings of the 160 native 
‘states have with them, usually at their capitals, a 
British resident, who advises the king on all impor- 
tant subjects. At the head of this complicated system 
of government is the viceroy, appointed by the king 
of England, who bears the title of emperor of India. 
On the whole the rule of England has been benign 
and beneficent, and generally favorable to Christian 
missions. Encouragement has been given to Chris- 
tian educational institutions by granting them finan- 
cial aid both for the erection of school buildings and 
for running expenses. | 

Recent Political Movements.—Within recent years, 
especially since the great war, England has exper- 
ienced increasing difficulty in the government of India 
on account of the growing spirit of self-determina- 
tion among the natives. The non-cooperation move- 
ment, headed by Mahatma Gandhi, created wide- 
spread disturbances by its assertion of passive re- 


90 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


sistence to the English government and to all West- 
ern influences and institutions. England met the de- 
mand of leading Indians by a Reform Act put into 
effect in December, 1919, which has placed more 
Indians into responsible governmental positions and 
looks towards ultimate self-government. Every mis- 
sionary who now goes to India must familiarize him- 
self with the motives, achievements and aims of this 
indigenous political, economic and social movement, 
because of its decided effect on the character and con- 
duct of mission work. 

Religious and Linguistic Divisions —The ambitious 
plans of those who wish to see a united and powerful 
India, free from foreign control, are hindered by the 
numerous linguistic and religious divisions of the 
people. There are 185 distinct languages and dialects, 
sixteen of which are spoken by more than 3,000,000 
each. Telugu is spoken by about 20,000,000, Tamil 
by 17,000,000, Oriya by 10,000,000. Hindi is spoken 
by over 90,000,000. These are the languages in which 
we, as American Lutherans, are most interested, be- 
cause our mission fields lie in the Telugu area, south 
of which Tamil and north of which Oriya and Hindi 
are spoken. Some of our missionaries are learning 
to use the Oriya language in the Jeypore field. 

Concerning the religious divisions of India the last 
Indian census of March, 1921, reveals interesting fig- 
ures. There were, according to this census, 318,- 
942,480 people in India, not including the island of 
Ceylon. The increase in the ten-year census period 
was 3,786,084. Classified according to religion the 
census returns show that both Buddhism and 
Mohammedanism have advanced more rapidly than 


NE ee 


FORCES IN THE FIELD 91 


Hinduism and Jainism. There are now two hundred 
millions of Hindus and sixty-eight millions of Moham- 
medans. ‘The former gained only eight per cent, 
and the latter a little more than three per cent from 
1911 to 1921. The Christians in India number 
4,754,079. Since the enumerators are non-Christians 
these figures may be regarded as not overdrawn. The 
Christian gain is 22.6 per cent during the census 
period, which is decidedly encouraging. 

The Telugus.—The Telugu area includes that part 
of India, which extends northward from the city of 
Madras along the coast of the Bay of Bengal almost 
as far as the Mahanandi River, to the confines of 
Bengal, and far inland into the heart of the Dekkan, 
covering a territory somewhat larger than Spain. 
Two large rivers flow through the Telugu country, 
the Godavery and the Kistna. The delta lands of 
these rivers are very fertile, numerous canals irrigat- 
ing the soil and furnishing also means of travel and 
traffic. The chief products of the country are rice, 
sugar, cotton and indigo. Palm trees of all kinds are 
numerous; the teak of the native forests is used in 
the construction of the better class of houses. The 
Indian banyan tree with its aerial roots, is a familiar 
object to the natives. 

Compared with the Aryans of North India they 
have a darker complexion, longer heads, flatter noses, 
more irregular features, and are shorter in stature. 
In lieu of physical strength and vigor they possess, 
to a marked degree, the power of patient endurance. 
By the side of a highly developed mystical sense there 
exists a very low standard of morality, both being 
largely due to the prevailing religion. 


92 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


Like all India the Telugu country is a land of vil- 
lages. Ninety per cent of the population lives in 
towns and villages,‘ which, although different in size, 
do not vary much in general appearance. The cul- 
tivated land around the towns and villages is fre- 
quently owned by absentee landlords, called zem- 
indars, whose bond servants the farmérs usually are. 
The homes of wealthy natives are large bungalows 
with roomy verandas; those of the middle and lower 
classes are gloomy and unattractive, usually consist- 
ing of one or two rooms, earthen floor, mud walls and 
a thatched roof of palm leaves. Little furniture is 
used. In many homes, cows, calves, buffaloes and 
bullocks are received on intimate terms. A few 
brass plates, cups and mugs, earthen cooking vessels 
and water jars, a knife but no forks, are the ordinary 
kitchen utensils. They are kept scrupulously clean 
lest the food be defiled and thus the caste be broken. 

The ordinary daily food of the people is rice with 
curry, or some form of millet. Their clothing is 
scant, and, as a rule, children wear no clothing until 
they are four or five years of age. The passion of 
the people for jewelry, their love of display, their 
feasting at weddings and funerals, and the litigation 
in which they are often involved, frequently leave 
them for years in the clutches of the money-lender, 
who demands exorbitant rates of interest. 

Father Heyer.—The history of our mission among 
the Telugus in India begins with the honored name of 
Rev. Christian Frederick Heyer, M. D., familiarly 
called Father Heyer. He was born in Helmstedt, 
duchy of Brunswick, Germany, July 10, 1798, the 
year in which William Carey landed in India. When 


FORCES IN THE FIELD 93 


Heyer was fourteen years old he crossed the Atlantic 
Ocean and went to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where 
he worked in his uncle’s hat factory. He studied 
theology in Philadelphia under the direction of Dr. 
J. H. Helmuth, Dr. F. D. Schaeffer and Dr. John C. 
Baker, finishing at the university of Goettingen, Ger- 
many. Returning to the United States he was 
licensed to preach in 1817 by the Ministerium of 
Pennsylvania, which ordained him three years later 
at Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Until he was called to 
be the first foreign missionary of the Lutheran 
Church in America he served as a home missionary 
in Crawford and Erie counties, Pennsylvania, in 
Pittsburgh, and Baltimore, in Kentucky and Indiana 
as an itinerant preacher, and served settled pastorates 
in Cumberland, Maryland, and Somerset, Pennsyl- 
vania. During the twenty-four years which elapsed 
between his licensure and his departure for India, 
Heyer held eight different appointments, averaging 
three years in each. The reason for these frequent 
changes may be found, in part, in a roving disposition ; 
but we must not ignore the fact that the work to 
which he was called in most of his appointments was 
of a temporary character. At any rate, it is evident 
that the Church always displayed confidence in his 
ability and fidelity, regardless of the task which it 
asked him to undertake. Today, after more than half 
a century, every congregation with which his name 
was in any way associated, refers to that association 
with justifiable pride. 

Heyer went to India and served throughout his 
career there as a foreign missionary appointed by 
the Ministerium of Pennsylvania and supported by 


94 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


it. He began the mission at Guntur, Madras Pres- 
idency, and served his first term from 1842 to 1846. 
After having selected Guntur as the place to start 
the mission, the most interesting and romantic per- 
iod of Heyer’s life began. Imagine a man nearly 
fifty years old, possessing a burning missionary zeal, 
with deep devotion to duty, great strength of pur- 
pose and indefatigable activity, entering upon an en- 
tirely new and untried sphere of labor in a foreign 
land among a people whose language, mode of life, 
habits of thought, customs and religion were alien to 
him! <A less courageous spirit would have shrunk 
from this task. Without doubt Heyer was chosen of 
God to be our pioneer missionary in India; and it 
was providential that Mr. Henry Stokes, the highest 
government official in the Guntur district, a man of 
Christian faith, unblemished life, noble self-denial, 
generous liberality and ardent zeal, should have wel- 
comed Heyer to Guntur and given the mission in its 
infancy his personal interest and most cordial 
support. 

On his return to the United States Heyer left Rev. 
Walter Gunn at Guntur, and the mission was trans- 
ferred to the Foreign Missionary Society of the Gen- 
eral Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in 
the United States, with the Ministerium of Pennsyl- 
vania cooperating financially. Heyer went back to 
Guntur in 1847, and served a second term of ten 
years until 1857, spending most of his time in the 
Palnad district and at Rajahmundry. Because it was 
commonly reported that the heat was almost unbear- 
able in the Palnad and the danger of getting fever 
was very great, Heyer had a coffin made in Guntur and 


FORCES IN THE FIELD — 95 


sent it to Gurgal. Soon after his arrival at Gurgal 
he had a grave dug near his house. At times, when 
the roof leaked badly, he slept in the coffin. Strange 
to say, he was not sick a single day, and on leaving 
the Palnad district to return to Guntur he burned 
the coffin, filled in the grave and, standing over it, 
triumphantly exclaimed: “Oh, death, where is thy 
sting! Oh, grave, where is thy victory!’ 

After Heyer’s return at the close of his second 
term of service in India, there came years of trial 
and distress for the mission. All of the missionaries 
except Rev. Urias Unangst died or left the field. The 
Civil War broke out in the United States. Financial 
difficulties arose. Ecclesiastical differences resulted 
in the withdrawal of the General Council from the 
General Synod. As a last resort Unangst asked the 
missionaries of the Church Missionary Society at 
Ellore to take charge of the work at Rajahmundry. 
Heyer, who had gone to Germany to attend to the 
education of his granddaughter, heard of the impend- 
ing transfer and hastened back to the United States, 
accompanied by H. C. Schmidt, to prevent the loss 
of this field to the American Lutheran Church. He 
prevailed upon the Ministerium of Pennsylvania at 
its meeting in Trinity Church, Reading, Pennsyl- 
vania, in 1869, to send him back to India. He was 
then seventy-seven years of age. It is related how at 
the meeting of the Ministerium he was asked, who 
could be secured to undertake this important mis- 
sion. Heyer arose, held up his traveling bag and 
exclaimed: ‘Here am I, Send me!” He succeeded 
in having the Rajahmundry field transferred to the 
General Council and stayed at Rajahmundry for two 


SL Ba FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


years, leaving the work in charge of Rev. H. C. 
Schmidt and Rev. I. K. Poulsen. 

Heyer spent the last year of his earthly life as 
chaplain in the Philadelphia Lutheran Theological 
Seminary, then located in Franklin Street. He died 
on November 7, 1878, at the age of eighty years. His 
body lies buried in the cemetery at Friedens near 
Somerset, Pennsylvania. 

Heyer was described by a contemporary as “a man 
of short stature, untiring energy, cheerful disposition, 
unflinching courage and self-denying spirit.” Eager 
and zealous to the very last days of his ripe old age 
to propagate the gospel, both at home and abroad, 
the Church instinctively turned to him whenever it 
contemplated a new mission enterprise. His success 
as a foreign missionary, in particular, entitles him 
to rank among the great men of our American Luth- 
eran Church. His name will be recalled by succes- 
sive generations as an inspiration for missionary ef- 
fort in every direction. 

The Rajahmundry Mission Field—About one hun- 
dred miles by rail north of Guntur lies Rajahmundry, 
where in 1845 the North German Missionary Society 
located three missionaries: Rev. Louis P. M. Vallet, 
Rev. Ferdinand August Heise and Rev. Charles Wil- 
liam Groenning. After five years of pioneer effort 
this station with its missionaries was transferred to 
the Foreign Missionary Society of the General Synod 
of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and 
since 1850 it has remained an American Lutheran 
mission field. 

For fifty years from 1869 the Guntur and Rajah- 
mundry fields in India were cultivated separately, the 


FORCES IN THE FIELD | 97 


one by the General Synod, the other by the General 
Council. In 1919, in consequence of the merger, these 
fields in India were again joined in one mission. 

Outstanding Missionaries.—To relate the history 
of our India mission in detail would require too much 
space for the purposes of this book. We must not 
leave this subject, however, without mentioning the 
names of some of the outstanding missionaries in 
- both fields. Heyer, who served in both the Rajah- 
mundry and Guntur fields, gave twenty-eight years 
to foreign mission service in India. Rev. H. C. 
Schmidt, D.D., served thirty-eight years in the Rajah- 
mundry field. Miss Agnes I. Schade, who is still an 
active missionary at Rajahmundry, has devoted thirty- 
three years to the education of Christian girls. Miss 
Susan E. Monroe, who went to India when she was 
almost sixty years old and served without remunera- 
tion for twenty years, manifested an exemplary mis- 
sionary spirit. ‘Those who served longest in the 
Guntur field are: Rev. Urias Unangst, thirty-eight 
years; Rev. John H. Harpster, D.D., twenty-two 
years, nine of which he gave to the Rajahmundry 
field; Rev. L. B. Wolf, D.D., who before his appoint- 
ment as general secretary of the Board of Foreign 
Missions served twenty-five years at Guntur; Rev. 
John Aberly, D.D., who completed thirty-three years 
of missionary service; Dr. Anna S. Kugler, still in the 
Guntur Hospital, who went to India over forty years 
ago; and Rev. L. L. Uhl, D.D., who has seen fifty years 
of service and now has retired as a missionary 
emeritus with a unique and enviable record. 

Other Lutheran Missions.—Other Lutheran mis- 
sions in India are the Tamil mission of the Church 


98 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


of Sweden, formerly the Leipsic mission; the Gossner 
mission among the Kols in Chota Nagpur’, now an 
autonomous church, which has been financed by the 
National Lutheran Council of North America and 
assisted by missionaries from our own India mission; 
the Joint Synod of Ohio mission just north of Mad- 
ras, formerly the Hermannsburg mission; the Brek- 
lum mission among Telugus and Oriyas, north of the 
Rajahmundry field, formerly the Schleswig-Holstein 
mission, now a part of our India mission, to be re- 
turned to its former patron when the way opens; 
the Missouri Synod mission in parts of the Madras 
Presidency and Travancore; the mission of the 
Church of Denmark with headquarters in Madras; 
and the Swedish mission of the Society of Stockholm, 
in the Central Provinces. All Lutherans in India 
now number 250,000. Of these over 100,000 belong 
to our own mission, which makes it one of the leading 
Protestant missions in India, whose influence has 
greatly increased since the war, because it was largely 
instrumental in the preservation of the former Ger- 
man Lutheran missions.’ 

The difficulties of Christian missions in India and 
the certainty of the Christian conquest of that great 
empire, are well expressed in Oxenham’s short poem. 


“A land of lights and shadows intervolved, 
A land of blazing sun and blackest night, 

A fortress armed, and guarded jealously, 
With every portal barred against the Light; 


1 The Santal mission lies north of this field in Bengal. 

?Its sphere of influence now extends from Bapatla taluk of the Madras 
Presidency to the Nellore, Guntur, Kistna, Godavery and Vizaganatam dis- 
tricts of the Presidency, to Jeypore, Chota Nagpur, Assam and across the 
bay of Bengal to Rangoon, Burma. 


FORCES IN THE FIELD | ue 


A land in thrall to ancient mystic faiths, 
A land of iron creeds and gruesome deeds, 
A land of superstitions vast and grim, 
And all the noisome growths that Darkness breeds. 


“Like sunny waves upon an iron-bound coast, 
The Light beats up against the close-barred doors, 
And seeks vain entrance, yet beats on and on, 
In hopeful faith which all defeat ignores; 
But—time shall come, when like a swelling tide, 
The Word shall leap the barriers, and the Light 
Shall sweep the land, and Faith and Love and Hope 
Shall win for Christ this stronghold of the night.” 


JAPAN 

Our Nearest Non-Christian Neighbor.—Geograph- 
ically Japan is our nearest foreign mission field. For- 
mosa, the southernmost Japanese island, is about 100 
miles from the northernmost island of the Philippine 
group, which belongs to the United States of Amer- 
ica. The first appeal of Japan, therefore, to the 
Christian Church in America is one of geographical 
nearness. 

Looking at this matter of geographical relationship 
from another point of view, it may be noted that all 
ships leaving the Pacific coast of the United States, 
bound for the Far East, reach Japan first, either end- 
ing the voyage there or calling at one of the ports 
of the empire on their way to China. 

Looking up and down the Pacific coast of the United 
States this matter of relationship assumes significant 
aspects. The entire coastland, especially California, 
feels and sees and knows the influence of the 
Japanese. There are about as many Japanese in the 
United States as there are Christians in Japan— 
260,000. Most of them live and labor along the 


100 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


Pacific coast, engaged largely in fruit and vegetable 
farming and in trading. Their presence has created 
a race problem which has vexed the governments of 
both Japan and the United States. We will not dis- 
cuss the diplomatic and political aspects of this prob- 
lem, but wish to draw attention to the inescapable 
nearness of the Japanese to us as a challenge to our 
missionary motives and obligations. 

Japanese Students in America.—The same chal- 
lenge is presented to Christian America by the pres- 
ence of Japanese and Chinese students in America. 
Many of them are here, while others want to come to 
learn from us what they can. Among them are a 
number of Japanese Lutherans. Rev. Inoko Miura 
and Rev. Hajime Inadomi returned to Japan in 1923, 
Rev. Nobori Asaji in 1924, after having been students 
in our American Lutheran theological seminaries. 
Mr. K. Hirai, Mr. G. Kosaka; and Mr. C. Kishi now 
are students in American Lutheran seminaries. They 
are representatives of many Japanese students in 
America, to whom America means a desirable oppor- 
tunity to acquire knowledge in all spheres of thought. 
What do we owe these men? What in their inner- 
most hearts do they want here? They want and we 
owe them a clear, true interpretation of Christ and 
His gospel, revealed in the Sacred Scriptures, in our 
words as we speak of Christianity, and in our lives as 
Christians. We must not disappoint them. 

Christianity in Japan.—it was more than an in- 
teresting historical event, it was the finger of God 
indicating an international obligation, which led Com- 
modore Perry in 1854 to sail into the harbor of Yoko- 
hama. Japan had been hermetically sealed to .West- 





FORCES IN THE FIELD 101 


ern influence for over two hundred years. Why did 
Japan prohibit the coming of all foreigners? The 
motive back of Japan’s attitude of isolation was a 
religious motive. In the latter half of the sixteenth 
century, after Francis Xavier first preached Chris- 
tianity in Japan, many Roman Catholic missionaries, 
mostly Jesuits, labored zealously in thé empire. It 
is said that hundreds of thousands of Japanese ac- 
cepted holy baptism. But the Jesuits made the mis- 
take of mixing politics with religion. They aimed 
more at political influence than at building up an in- 
digenous church. The leaders of Japan resented their 
political ambitions and intrigues. The government 
decided to adopt extreme measures. The missionaries 
~~ were banished; Christians were persecuted and many 
of them were put to death. Signboards were posted 
everywhere throughout the empire with this an- 
nouncement: “So long as the sun shall warm the 
earth, let no Christian be so bold as to come to Japan. 
Let all know that the king of Spain himself, or the 
Christian God, or the great God of all, if he violate 
this command, shall pay for it with his head!” 

Japan Open to Christianity.—After Commodore 
Perry’s fleet of American battleships sailed away, 
Protestant missionaries came to Japan. The Japanese 
Government let them stay because they did not mix 
politics and religion. American missionaries are in 
Japan to win Japan for Christ. It is true that Pro- 
testant Christianity must and will influence politics 
as well as religion and morality in Japan, as else- 
where on earth; but Protestant missionaries wait for 
the inevitable changes to come as a natural process, 
as a Japanese and not a foreign movement. 


102 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


Japan today is open to the preaching and teaching 
of Christianity. When the first Protestant mission- 
aries landed, they were obliged to walk and talk cir- 
cumspectly. They were forced in many instances to 
choose the role of teachers of secular subjects rather 
than preachers of religion; and to this day mission- 
aries find opportunities to impart Christianity 
through the medium of instruction in English, science, 
literature and art. 

Protestant Missions.—Missionaries of the Pro- 
testant Episcopal, American Reformed and Presby- 
terian Churches were the first, in 1859, to go to Japan. 
Today there are 1,245 Protestant missionaries of 
many denominations in every part of the empire, 
4,385 Japanese Christian workers, and 280,000 Chris- 
tians, of whom 168,000 are Protestants, 75,000 
Roman Catholics and 37,000 Greek Catholics. 

Some Characteristics of the Japanese.—Dr. Charles 
L. Brown, who spent seventeen years as a missionary 
in Japan, describes some of the characteristics of 
the Japanese as follows: “The origin of the Japanese 
race is still a mystery. One theory links them with 
the ancient Greeks, another with the lost ten tribes 
of Israel. The most reasonable explanation traces 
them through Korea to the South Sea Islands. The 
Japanese themselves cbject to being classed as Mon- 
golian, but certain it is that in their veins flows a 
Mongolian strain. Wherever they may have come 
from, they landed on the southern island of Kyushu 
and slowly pushed northward, driving before them 
and superseding the aboriginal Ainu tribes. The 
physiognomy of the people, as they are today, would 
indicate the blending of two races, the general type 


FORCES IN THE FIELD | 103 


of each remaining more or less distinct. The one is 
more slender in stature, with longer face and nose, 
while the other is of more sturdy stock with rounded 
features. The traditions of the race, as embodied in 
the ancient histories compiled under official sanction, 
trace the ancestry of the Japanese to the “great high 
plane of heaven.” The divine right of kings, there- 
fore, is a doctrine familiar to all Japan. Amaterasu, 
the sun goddess, is said to be the progenitor of the 
imperial line and is the object of divine worship by 
the multitudes. 

“A catalogue of the more clearly defined char- 
acteristics of the Japanese would include patriotism, 
filial piety, politeness, self control, thirst for know- 
ledge, aptness to learn, and a desire for progress. 

“The charge is made sometimes that Japan is a 
country of atheists. True, atheism here finds fertile 
soil. ‘Much learning’ has made many students mad. 
But if St. Paul could stand in the heart of Japan to- 
day and preach to the people, it is quite probable that 
he would say: ‘Ye men of Japan, I perceive that in 
all things ye are too religious.’ In this land of many 
religions and innumerable gods, covered with temples 
and shrines, the great need is yet for the true 
religion.” 

Our Japan Mission.—Much of the success of our 
Japan mission is due to the consecrated labors of Dr. 
Charles L. Brown, who served from 1898 to 1916. 
The mission was begun in 1892, when Rev. J. A. B. 
Scherer and Rev. R. B. Peery were sent out as the 
first missionaries of the United Synod of the Evan- 
gelical Lutheran Church in the South. They located 
the first station at Saga on the island of Kyushu. Dr. 


104 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


Brown in 1900 went to Kumamoto. At the same time 
Rev. J. M. T. Winther, the first missionary of the 
United Danish Church of America, entered Kurume. 
In 1908 Dr. Brown started the Boys’ Middle School 
at Kumamoto, Kyushu Gakuin, which has since de- 
veloped into a large and important mission institu- 
tion with nearly 600 students. The same year marks 
the entrance of the General Council into Japan and 
the occupation of the capital city, Tokio, as the first 
station on the main island, where the proposed the- 
ological seminary is to be located. 

From the very beginning all American Lutheran 
missionaries in Japan carried on their work in the 
closest cooperation, despite the difference of their 
synodical affiliations in America. The cooperating 
synods were those of the United Synod in the South, 
General Council, United Danish Church and Icelandic 
Synod. The merger in 1918 drew the bonds still 
closer, led to the incorporation of the Danish-Amer- 
ican missionaries into the mission organization, and 
to the active participation of the former General 
Synod constituency in this field. 

The main stations on the island of Kyushu, besides 
those already mentioned, are Fukuoka, Omuta and 
Moji; on the island of Hondo: Shimonoseki, Kobe, 
Osaka, Kyoto, Nagoya, Toyohashi. The present policy 
of the mission is to do intensive work at these places 
and in surrounding parts; and an earnest effort is 
being made by the home Church to make this possible 
by furnishing the necessary equipment. The educa- 
tional work of the mission is of great importance, 
though practically limited by conditions and govern- 
ment restrictions to higher education on the one hand, 





FORCES IN THE FIELD 105 


and to kindergartens on the other. The kindergartens 
are in charge of women missionaries, whose desire for 
a mission school for girls, similar to Kyushu Gakuin, 
is to be met by the effort of the Women’s Missionary 
Society of the United Lutheran Church. The women’s 
work includes, also, a colony of mercy at Kumamoto. 


LIBERIA, AFRICA 


Liberia is located on the west coast of Africa, where 
the coast line abruptly turns inwards to form the 
Gulf of Guinea. The climate of this little country is 
tropical and there are two seasons. The wet season 
begins in April and ends in August, the dry season 
lasts for the rest of the year. Missionaries are ad- 
vised to arrive on the mission field during the wet 
season. The natural resources are said to be mar- 
velous but they have remained undeveloped. The 
flora and fauna of the country are luxurious and 
varied. 

The history of this unique negro republic begins 
with the organization of American colonization 
societies in the second decade of the nineteenth cen- 
tury. These societies had as their object the estab- 
lishment of a national asylum for freed slaves and 
their descendants. Liberia was chosen and was so 
named because it was to be their land of freedom and 
independence. A government was established in 
1847, patterned after that of the United States of 
America. Monrovia, the capital, at the mouth of the 
St. Paul River, was named in honor of President 
Monroe. There are now about 60,000 Americo- 
Liberians inhabiting the coast region, which is 350 


106 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


miles long and extends about thirty miles inland. The 
inhabitants of the interior regions are primitive 
aboriginal negroes. Those who live in our mission 
territory belong to the Kpele and allied tribes. 

Muhlenberg Mission.—In 1860 Rev. Morris Officer 
and Rev. H. Heigerd, missionaries of the Foreign 
Missionary Society of the General Synod of the 
Evangelical Lutheran Church in the United States 
began the mission by establishing a boarding school 
for boys and girls on a site twenty-five miles from 
Monrovia on the St. Paul River. They started with 
forty boys and girls rescued from a captured slave 
ship, coming from the Congo. Now there are two 
schools, one for boys and one for girls, each having 
about seventy pupils enrolled. They are located on 
opposite sides of the river, which is crossed in canoes. 
The Reed Memorial Church stands on the boys’ side, 
the Phebe hospital on the girls’ side. Both are sub- 
stantial cement buildings, as is also the new girls’ 
school and dormitory. The hospital and girls’ school 
building were erected by the Women’s Missionary 
Society, and all the building material, except native 
wood, was imported from America or Europe. The 
boarding schools are similar to American orphanages, 
with instruction up to the eighth grade and some in- 
dustrial training. 

David A. Day.—The outstanding missionary of our 
mission in Liberia is Dr. David A. Day, who served 
for twenty-three years from 1874 to 1897. His body 
lies buried at Selinsgrove, Pa. In memory of his 
wife, the white woman who lived and labored longest 
in the mission, the girls’ school is called the Emma 
V. Day School for Girls. Another missionary, whose 


FORCES IN THE FIELD 107 


name will receive honorable mention in any history 
of our Liberia mission, is Rev. Frank M. Traub, who 
after a service of eleven years from 1911 to 1922, 
died on furlough May 7, 1923. One of the chief 
causes of the comparative backwardness of the mis- 
sion up to the present has been the brevity of the 
service of most of the missionaries and the consequent 
lack of continuity in the mission plans and work. 
Another has been the difficulty of establishing or- 
ganized native congregations. Our missionaries say 
that they everywhere meet those who have been 
educated in the mission schools but have united with 
other churches in the various settlements. 

Policy of Advance.—The present policy of the mis- 
‘sion contemplates more aggressive work among the 
interior tribes, which will lead to the establishment 
of an indigenous church. Interior stations already 
established are Kpolopele, Sanoghie, Zozo and Kolojo. 
Others in view are Bakasa, Zolou and Zinta. For 
this development and its accompanying educational 
and industrial work a larger force of missionaries 
is needed. Not only ordained men and single women to 
serve as teachers are needed, but unordained men for 
educational and industrial work, especially agricul- 
tural missionaries and physicians, both men and 
women, and nurses. The difficulties of traveling 
through the interior parts of the country create a 
severe handicap for missionary work. There are no 
means of travel except on foot over narrow bush- 
paths. The journeys are lightened, however, by na- 
tive carriers who tote passengers in hammocks and 
goods in hampers on their backs. Not one of the 
twenty-five native workers is an ordained pastor; but 


108 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


a theological class has been formed and the mission 
will make an earnest effort to supply this lack, as well 
as to increase the number and efficiency of the native 
workers. 


SOUTH AMERICA 


British Guiana Mission.—The only part of South 
America which is under foreign control is that small 
northern section, called Guiana, which is divided into 
three parts; British, Dutch and French. The history 
of the Lutheran Church in the Guianas dates back 
to 1665, when Baron Justinianus von Weltz went to 
Surinam, where he died within a year after his ar- 
rival. The grave of this missionary hero of our 
Lutheran Church is not very far from our mission 
field in British Guiana. The head station in our mis- 
sion is the city of New Amsterdam. Here Dutch 
Lutherans established a congregation in 1743, one 
hundred and eighty years ago. Oppressed by his 
isolation the pastor of this congregation, Rev. J. R. 
Mittelholzer, in 1890, sought and secured enroll- 
ment as a member of the East Pennsylvania Synod. 
After his death in 1915, the congregation with its 
outstations along the Berbice River was placed under 
the care and control of the Board of Foreign Missions 
of the General Synod, which sent Rev. Ralph J. White 
in 1916, to be the missionary in charge. In New 
Amsterdam he secured the help of a Hindi catechist, 
who works among the immigrated East Indians. He 
writes: “The work in New Amsterdam is very much 
like the work in any church at home. The only dif- 
ferences are the country, the climate and the nations 
represented. Here in New Amsterdam our congre- 


FORCES IN THE FIELD. 109 


gation numbers about one hundred and sixty, includ- 
ing our little handful of East Indians. Our Sunday 
school has an average attendance of one hundred and 
our outdoor classes have nearly fifty enrolled.” 

In January, 1924, Rev. R. J. White was transferred 
to Buenos Aires and the British Guiana mission was 
placed in charge of Rev. and Mrs. H. E. Haas. 

River Stations.—In addition to the main congrega- 
tion at New Amsterdam there are three river con- 
gregations. The largest is St. Paul’s at Bien Content, 
with one hundred and twenty-five members. A 
smaller congregation is Mt. Hermon at St. Lust. The 
third is a congregation of Arawak Indians at Ituni. 
These Arawaks are aboriginal South American 
Indians, allied to our North American Indians. In 
order to reach Ituni the missionary must travel down 
the Berbice River by steamer and canoe for one hun- 
dred and twenty-five miles. A primary school is 
conducted at each river station. This work, however, 
cannot be properly developed until a missionary gives 
his undivided attention to it.’ 

Argentine.—Buenos Aires, an important seaport of 
South America, is the capital and largest city of the 
Argentine Republic. It is situated on the right bank 
of the La Plata River. The adjacent country is an 
alluvial plain, nearly destitute of timber. The climate 
is temperate, dry and healthy. It is a large, beauti- 
ful, modern city of Spanish speaking people with a 
considerable proportion of European immigrants of 
other languages. The dominant religion is Roman 
Catholicism. 


_? Concerning the British Guiana mission field and his work in it, Mis- 
sionary White has written an interesting book entitled, ‘‘Six Years in Ham- 
mock Land.” 


110 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


S. D. Daugherty.—The history of our mission in 
Buenos Aires may be divided into three periods. Dur- 
ing the first period the work was under the direction 
of the Board of Home Missions of the General Synod 
of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the United 
States, supported largely by its Women’s Missionary 
Society. Dr. S. D. Daugherty, the first missionary, 
reached Buenos Aires in 1908 and labored there for 
three years, gathering a congregation of Scandinavian 
Lutherans, conducting an English-Spanish Sunday 
school in the city and an English speaking mission 
station with Sunday and day schools in the suburb of 
Caseros. Some work was done among Spanish speak- 
ing people in the suburb of Santos Lugares and in 
the city of Rosario. Unfortunately the work was 
discontinued in 1912 and its results disappeared. 


f. Ceder.—During the second period the mission 
was in charge of the Pan-Lutheran Missionary So- 
ciety for Latin America, an association of interested 
friends in various Lutheran synods in the United 
States. Its missionary was Rev. Efraim Ceder, who, 
in 1917 and 1918, succeeded in organizing a Swedish 
Lutheran congregation, which later connected with 
the mother church in Sweden. 

The third period began in the fall of 1919, when the 
mission was transferred to the Board of Foreign Mis- 
sions of the United Lutheran Church in America. 


Dr. and Mrs. E. H. Mueller, formerly missionaries 
in India, reached Buenos Aires in January, 1920, and 
developed the work with remarkable rapidity up to 
the time of Dr. Mueller’s death on November 22, 1923. 
They were very successful among Spanish speaking 


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NVUGHLOT dO DNIAWT UNOLS-YaNYOD LV ONIHOVaNd “YATIAW “H “WY ‘ud 


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FORCES IN THE FIELD 111 


people in the Villa del Parque section of the city, 
where a flourishing congregation has been organized 
and several schools have been established. In April, 
1928, a college, called Colegio Nacional, was started 
with the two lower grades. Congregations and Sun- 
day schools have been conducted, also, in Caseros, 
Jose Paz, and San Miguel. For about a year Mrs. 
Anna H. Mueller, at her own expense, assisted in the 
work of teaching in the primary grades of the school 
in Villa del Parque. Early in 1922 Rev. Paul O. 
Machetzki was added to the staff of missionaries; and 
in January, 1924, Rev. Ralph J. White succeeded Dr. 
E. H. Mueller at Buenos Aires. Rev. and Mrs. A. 
Armbruster reached the field in September, 1924. 


CHINA 


Both the General Synod in 1862 and the General 
Council in 1869 entertained hopes and laid plans for 
a mission in China, but neither actually began the 
work. It has remained for the United Lutheran 
Church to make a beginning as authorized at the 
Buffalo and Chicago Conventions in 1922 and 1924. 

The Berlin Missionary Society of Germany has 
transferred its Shantung mission in China to the 
United Lutheran Church in America, which, through 
its Board of Foreign Missions, assumed full control 
of the field in January, 1925. The service of three 
ordained missionaries, Revs. Voskamp, Scholz and 
Matzat, and two women missionaries, Freda Strecker 
and Kate Voget, have been retained at the main sta- 
tions Kiaochau, Tsingtao and Tsimo. The Christian 
community in this field numbers about 1,000. The 


112 


FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


mission property has been purchased for $185,500, 


to 


be paid in ten installments with interest at 3 per 


cent. It consists of the following buildings, all sums 
being given in Mexican dollars, the standard currency 
of China: 


Tsingtao mission ‘Propercy usicicto-cletssscetuesets abcosaess $140,000 
Tsingtao Pirie SaChOole ak wa. latent ett cess 50,000 
SINGERS CHUPCH os camer, Si sie od 20,000 
Taidungchen chapel, school, Ct. ......cccccccseeeeeeeee 15,000 
Litsun church, dwelling and land ....................008 12,000 
Kiaochau house, chapel, school, land ............... 85,000 
Tsimo dwelling, church, hospital, land................ 40,000 
Qutstations in: Tsimo. district: ii idicke cece 5,400 
Outstations in Kiaochau district wc... .eeseeescceee 2,600 
Outstations in Tsingtao district ..........ccccccceeeee 2,600 

MOREL YA iatesuaseckruted tate Okan ec cle eA tn Cote $373,600 
Deductions *for/repairs: nee ee. 30,000 


Total purchase price in Mexican dollars....$352,600 


At present rate of exchange, a U. S. dollar 
about Mexican $1.90. Total U. S. dollars........ $185,500 


Should the Berlin society wish to take back a part 
of the field in the Shantung province within the next 
ten years the United Lutheran Church agrees to re- 
open negotiations with the understanding that repay- 
ment shall be made according to the same schedule of 
values as at the time of the transfer. 


QUESTIONS 


. Counting all Christians as one group, which religious group 


is the largest in the world? 


- What per cent of the world’s population does Christianity 


embrace? 


. What are the three largest non-Christian groups in the order 
of their size? 


- To what non-Christian peoples do the foreign missionaries 


of the United Lutheran Church in America now preach the 
Gospel? 


FORCES IN THE FIELD © . 118 


Our India Mission 

5. Who, according to tradition, first brought Christianity to 
India? 

6. Name the first Protestant missionaries in India? 

7. When and where did they begin their work? 

8. Who was the first American Lutheran missionary in India? 

9. When and where did he begin the American Lutheran 
mission in India? 

10. Describe the origin of the Rajahmundry mission ‘work. 

11. Name the two fields of our India mission. 

12. Name some of the important stations. 

13. Name some of the outstanding missionaries in the India 
mission. 

14. Name some of the mission institutions. 


Our Missions in Japan, Liberia, South America and China 


15. What country induced Japan to reopen its doors to Chris- 
tianity? 

16. When and how did this occur? 

17. What anniversary did the Japan mission celebrate in 1923? 

18. Where was the Japan mission begun and by whom? 

19. Who was the outstanding missionary in Japan? 

20. Name the pioneer Danish Lutheran missionary in Japan. 

21. What is the name of the mission. school for boys at 
Kumamoto? 

22. Who was the outstanding missionary in our Liberia mission? 
How long did he serve? 

23. When and by whom was our Liberia mission established? 

24, Name our mission stations in South America. 

25. Among what people in Buenos Aires are we doing mission 
work? 

26. Where is our new mission in China located? 


CHAPTER V. 
ORGANIZED FORCES ABROAD 


THE MISSION 


The mission is the organized foreign agency of the 
home Church under the direction of the Board of For- 
eign Missions for the administration of its mission 
work in the foreign field. The mission is amenable to 
the Board, on the one hand, and on the other hand it 
is the servant of the Christian converts and congrega- 
- tions of the field, to aid them in the establishment and 
development of a native Church with ultimate self- 
support, self-determination and self-propagation in 
view. 

Our missions in India and Japan already have 
organized indigenous churches with rapidly developing 
powers and functions. The mission in Liberia is in 
the process of better organization with the prospect 
of an organized native Church still far off. Those in 
South America are in the first stages of organization 
both as missions and churches. The mission in British 
Guiana is unique in having an established congre- 
gation at New Amsterdam one hundred and eighty 
years old, while distinct mission work is being carried 
on along the Berbice river. 

Mission Organization.—The ecclesiastical molt of 

the home Church determines the character of the mis- 

sion organization. Episcopalians organize and govern 
114 


ORGANIZED FORCES ABROAD 115 


their missions episcopally; Presbyterians and Luth- 
erans synodically; Congregationalists and Baptists, 
congregationally. An interesting experiment is being 
tried in the former Leipsic mission field in India by 
the Church of Sweden Missionary Society, to which 
this field was transferred during the war. A Lutheran 
bishop, one of the Swedish missionaries, recently has 
been consecrated by a bishop of Sweden, and a modi- 
fied episcopacy has been inaugurated on the assump- 
tion that this form of government conforms more 
closely to the Indian mind and method of organization. 


In Japan the mission chamber and the Japanese 
chamber meet simultaneously but separately. Com- 
mon action is taken through a joint committee, a joint 
-ministerium and joint sessions, when needed. 


The mission organization with its elected officers 
and committees, standing and special, is identical with 
the church organization with which we are familiar 
in America. The official correspondence with the 
Board is conducted by an elected corresponding secre- 
tary of the mission and is addressed to the Board’s 
secretary in charge of the field. Private correspond- 
ence concerning mission policies and work, addressed 
to others than officers of the Board, is not received 
by the Board for consideration. Whatever the in- 
dividual missionary desires for himself or for his 
work must be presented to the mission organization 
for recommendation to the Board. Sad experience 
has taught the Board the wisdom and necessity of this 
policy. Each missionary, however, is asked to write 
articles for publication in America according to a 
schedule arranged by the mission organization, and 


116 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


annually writes a report of his or her work to be in- 
cluded in the Board’s published annual report of the 
foreign missions. 

The mission organization in India is called The 
Council of the India Mission; in Japan, the Annual 
Convention of the Japan Mission; in Liberia, the 
Mission Conference. Because of the separate incor- 
poration of the Women’s Missionary Society in 
America, each mission organization has a woman’s 
work committee and a separate corresponding secre- 
tary for woman’s work, who writes to the executive 
secretary of the women’s executive board, sending 
duplicate copies of all correspondence to the Board’s 
secretary in charge of the mission. 


Mission Budgets.—All appropriations of funds are 
made on the recommendation of the mission organiza- 
tion. Every year each mission prepares and sends to 
the Board a carefully estimated budget of its financial 
needs in all districts and departments for the ensuing 
year. These reach the Board about the same time 
each year and are studied as a whole with a view to 
justice for all missions. The budgets for women’s 
work are submitted for approval to the women’s execu- 
tive board. Should the Board of Foreign Missions 
be obliged, because of inadequate income, to reduce 
the mission budgets, as it did in 1922, the adjustments 
are made in the field. The average per cent. of in- 
crease from year to year for the normal growth of 
the work in India is 10 per cent. Asa rule the rate 
increases in proportion to the smaller size of the mis- 
sion. For mew work and building operations the 
Board can provide only from special funds on hand or 


ORGANIZED FORCES ABROAD 117 


made available, which explains the reason for such an 
effort as the Foreign Mission Forward Fund. It has 
become a trite saying that foreign mission work can 
grow only as fast as the home Church makes it 
financially possible. 

Each missionary draws from the mission treasurer 
his salary, allowances and sanctioned proportion of 
funds for the conduct of his or her work. The pro- 
portion is determined by the mission budget. The 
missionary then pays the salaries and allowances of 
his or her native workers and all expenses in his or 
her district or department, including building oper- 
ations. In the better organized missions building 
plans, specifications and estimates are prepared by an 
appointed building committee, which also exercises 
genéral supervision of the larger operations. It is, 
therefore, important that the missionary should 
understand bookkeeping and business methods and 
should be a good manager of men and affairs. 


Evangelistic Work.—For the better supervision of 
the evangelistic and pastoral work the mission field 
is divided into districts in charge of missionaries. 
The districts in our India field are designated by the 
names of the towns in which the missionaries in 
charge reside or by the names of the taluks (coun- 
ties) in which they labor. The districts in the Rajah- 
mundry field are: The Rajahmundry, Korukonda, 
Jaggampet, Samulkot and Dowlaishwaram districts 
' to the north and east of the Godavery river; and the 
Tallapudi, Tadepalligudem or Tanuku, Bhimawaram 
and Narsapur districts to the south and west of the 
river. The districts in the Guntur field are: The 


118 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


Guntur, Tenali, Repalle and Bapatla districts east 
and south of Guntur, and the Sattenapalle, Palnad, 
Narsaravupet, Vinukonda and Markapur districts to 
the west of the main station. Furloughs and a short- 
age of missionaries often make it necessary for a 
missionary to supervise more than one district at a 
time. 

District Work.—The district missionary in India 
regularly visits the villages and towns in his district, 
in which Christians reside, congregations are estab- 
lished and schools are conducted by native workers. 
He examines the work of the school teachers, evan- 
gelists, catechists, supervisors and pastors. When 
he reaches a village he baptizes the infant children 
of Christian parents and the adult inquirers who have 
been properly instructed by the native workers. He 
administers the Lord’s Supper to the communicants. 
He attends to the discipline of the congregations. He 
preaches to the Christians in their prayer houses, on 
the veranda of a native home or in the open under the 
trees. If time and opportunity are given, he preaches 
also to the non-Christians in their quarters. For the 
most part he relies upon the Indian Christian work- 
ers, especially the evangelists, to reach the non-Chris- 
tian people. More and more the pastoral work and 
congregational discipline during the absence of the 
missionary are being regulated by local panchayets, 
or church councils. 

The missionaries in the districts where there are 
canals use mission house-boats. Those in the so-called 
dry districts formerly traveled in springless ox-carts 
drawn by bullocks, or in tongas drawn by ponies, but 


ORGANIZED FORCES ABROAD 119 


most of them now have automobiles, presented to them 
by friends and supporters in America. Because they 
are used in the work of the mission and the cost of 
upkeep and repairs is borne by the mission they are 
listed as mission property. When missionaries tour 
for evangelistic work in a village they live in tents or 
rest-houses. 


Zenana Work.—The sad and deplorable lot of wo- 
men in India and the seclusion of certain classes of 
women in zenanas, or women’s apartments, to which 
no man outside the family circle is admitted, demand 
the employment of single women as missionaries in 
evangelistic work. The zenana worker visits the 
-women and children to teach them, and trains Bible- 
women as teachers in the native homes. Evangelistic 
work in the districts also is carried on by women mis- 
sionaries, traveling from village to village and living 
in tents, to which the village women and children 
come for instruction and help. Often this village 
work is combined with medical work or with indus- 
trial work like the lace industry. 


In Japan our missionaries are located in cities and 
do most of their evangelistic work through street 
preaching in street-side chapels or in tents on vacant 
city lots. From most of the central cities the mission- 
aries and the Japanese pastors and evangelists go to 
surrounding towns and villages. Rural evangelistic 
work, however, has not been done in Japan as exten- 
sively as it should have been done, say those who are 
conversant with the situation. As a consequence 
eighty per cent. of the rural population has remained 
uninfluenced by Christian missionary effort. 


120 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


In Liberia evangelistic work has been subordinate 
to educational effort for boys and girls at the main 
station; but with the mission’s advance into the in- 
terior it will be more vigorously pushed. 

In British Guiana the missionary does his evangel- 
istic work at the stations along the Berbice river. He 
relies upon his Hindi catechist to reach the East In- 
dian population in New Amsterdam and elsewhere. 

Educational Work.—Hand in hand with the evan- 
gelistic work goes the educational work in every mis- 
sion. It is the purpose of educational work to make 
the Christian community literate and intelligent, to 
provide adequate education and training for native 
workers of every grade, and to serve as an agency for 
reaching non-Christians with Christian instruction. 

In Liberia the boarding schools at the main station 
are patterned after the public schools in the state of 
Pennsylvania, up to the eighth grade. Boarding 
schools of a similar character and day schools are con- 
ducted at interior stations. Some industrial and do- 
mestic training is given in each mission boarding 
school. 

In British Guiana there are three primary schools 
and an industrial school. The missionaries in Buenos 
Aires are developing the educational work in many 
directions, having started a kindergarten, a primary 
school, a commercial school, a school of music, a 
language school and a college. 

In Japan there are a number of kindergartens in 
charge of women missionaries, and a middle school 
for boys, which ranks a little higher than an Ameri- 
can high school. It is called Kyushu Gakuin. The 


ORGANIZED FORCES ABROAD 121 


Japanese word gakuin means a school of more than . 
one department. It was so called because it has had 
a theological department. The school for girls of a 
grade similar to that of Kyushu Gakuin will be located 
in the same city—Kumamoto. All public school in- 
struction in Japan is under government control and 
is compulsory. There is no room, therefore, for mis- 
sion schools of the primary grade. To the credit of 
the government of Japan it must be said that the per- 
centage of literacy is higher in that country than in 
the United States of America. 


In our India mission there are schools of all grades 
from the primary to the Sylvanus Stall high school 
for girls and the college for boys in Guntur. Though 
they are mission schools they all are regularly in- 
spected by government officials and impart instruc- 
tion in secular subjects as prescribed by the govern- 
ment. They then receive grants-in-aid and salary 
grants from the government, and these added to the 
fees paid by students provide for a large part of the 
running’ expenses. For approved school building's 
the government grants one-half of the cost of erection. 


The number of school teachers of all grades in the 
mission in India is 1,500. They instruct over 32,000 
pupils in nearly 1,000 schools in the rudiments of 
knowledge and in the Christian religion. In all mis- 
sion schools the Bible, Luther’s Catechism, Christian 
hymns and Telugu lyrics are taught. High schools 
for boys are located at Guntur, Peddapur and Bhima- 
waram. 


For the girls who are graduated from the Sylvanus 
Stall High School, Guntur, further education is of- 


122 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


fered in an inter-mission college for women at Madras. 
At Vellore there is an inter-mission medical school for 
women, two graduates of which are now employed in 
our Guntur hospital. We assume our proportionate 
share of the support of these two institutions. 


The boys who are graduated from the mission col- 
lege at Guntur now complete their college and uni- 
versity education elsewhere. Plans are being formed 
for the establishment of a first-class United Luth- 
eran College for the Telugu area. 

In all our missions Sunday schools are conducted 
with good success in the same manner as in America. 
In all of them, except the one in British Guiana, Bible 
training schools or theological seminaries for evangel- 
ists and pastors are carried on. Our India mission 
also conducts training schools for school teachers and 
Bible-women. | 

Industrial Work.—An interesting feature of the 
educational work in our missions in India and Liberia, 
which is growing in importance, is that of industrial 
training for boys and girls. For the agricultural 
training of boys the government in India has given 
the mission a tract of land near Guntur, known as the 
Lam Reserve, where a vocational community school 
is being conducted. Other industries taught in the 
mission are printing, carpentry and weaving. To 
these the Liberia mission adds brickmaking, tailor- 
ing, tanning and shoemaking. Before the war con- 
siderable coffee was sent from our Liberia mission to 
be sold in America at a fair profit. 

Perhaps the most interesting industrial work in 
our foreign fields is the lace industry in India, which 


ORGANIZED FORCES ABROAD 123 


employs hundreds of women and girls in their own 
villages under the supervision of women missionaries. 
The lace is sold for a profit in the United States and 
Canada by a committee of the Women’s Missionary 
Society, and the proceeds are used in mission work. 
The India headquarters of this industry are located 
at Rajahmundry and Narsaravupet. 

Philanthropic and Medical Work.—All institutions 
of mercy found in the home Church are or may be 
reproduced in the foreign field. At Guntur and 
Rajahmundry there are orphanages, at Rentichintala 
a home and school for the blind, at Guntur a home for 
unprotected Christian women. At Salur in the Jey- 
pore field there is a leper asylum, which since the war 
has been conducted by the Mission to Lepers. At 
Kumamoto, Japan, the mission has established a 
Colony of Mercy with a rescue home, an orphanage 
and an old people’s home. 

Medical Work.—Medical mission effort has assumed 
a conspicuous place in the women’s work in India, and 
is becoming more important in the general work in 
the districts. In Liberia it is absolutely necessary for 
the development of the mission work in the interior, 
where there are no doctors, nurses, hospitals or dis- 
pensaries other than those supplied by the mission. 
In Japan medical mission work is not required. 

The neglect of sick women and girls in zenanas in 
India, and their reluctance to go to a general govern- 
ment hospital or dispensary, where men are treated, 
led to the establishment and development of medical 
work and hospitals for women and children as a part 
of the women missionaries’ work. In our India mis- 


124 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


sion there are now three splendid, well-equipped hos- 
pitals for women and children at Guntur, Chirala and 
Rajahmundry. General hospitals have been estab- 
lished at Rentichintala and Tarlupad. Dispensaries 
are conducted at a number of out-stations. Five for- 
eign doctors, seven Indian assistant surgeons, ten 
missionary nurses, twenty-eight Indian nurses and 
seventy-five ayahs and other servants are employed. 
More than one-half of the cost of the running expenses 
of the medical work is paid from local receipts through 
fees and donations. The total expenditures in 1922 
amounted to $26,200, the cost to the mission being 
$12,800. Thirty-eight thousand patients were treated: 
12,000 at Guntur, 8,000 at Rentichintala, 7,000 at 
Rajahmundry, 5,700 at Chirala, and 4,600 at Tarlu- 
pad. 
In Liberia the women’s missionary society of our 
Church has built the Phoebe hospital near the girls’ 
school, and dispensary work has been undertaken at 
Kpolopele and Sanoghie. One doctor and one nurse 
are at the main station. A doctor and two nurses have 
gone into the interior. A doctor and a nurse are on 
furlough in America. Other doctors and nurses are 
needed for medical work to be opened at interior 
stations. 

A characteristic feature of women’s missionary 
work in our Liberia mission is the employment of 
deaconess missionaries, of whom there are three at 
present. Because of their institutional training as 
teachers and nurses they are peculiarly qualified for 
this unique field. 


ORGANIZED FORCES ABROAD 125 


For the sake of convenient description mission 
work may be classified, as we have done it, into evan- 
gelistic, educational, industrial, philanthropic and 
medical. In and through every branch and depart- 
ment of the work, however, the missionaries by their 
Christian instruction and life strive to win souls for 
Christ, build up and extend the native Church and 
Christianize the nation. Every missionary is, above 
all things, a maker of disciples. 


Native Workers and Their Support.—In all districts 
and departments in all fields the missionaries employ 
native workers, not only because they are needed but 
also because they are to become ultimately the succes- 
sors of the missionaries. As the mission grows the 
number of native workers increases and their effi- 
ciency developes. Dr. John H. Harpster used to say, 
and all missionaries agree with him, that he is an 
efficient and successful missionary who is able to 
multiply himself in an ever-increasing number of in- 
creasingly efficient and zealous native workers. Our 
missions in India and Japan have reached a stage of 
development, which makes it essential to provide high- 
grade theological seminaries for the education of na- 
tive pastors, who are to be the leaders of the native 
Church. 

In Japan the native workers are teachers in the 
mission middle school, unordained evangelists and 
ordained pastors. In the women’s work kindergarten 
teachers and Bible-women are employed. In Liberia, 
besides the teachers in the boarding and day schools, 
there are a number of industrial teachers. In India 
the mission employs: 


126 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


School teachers, men and women, who teach village 
primary schools and certain subjects in the higher 
schools. 

Bible-women for evangelistic work in zenanas and 
institutions. 

Indian doctors and nurses. 

Catechists, who are responsible for religious work 
among Christians and others in one to four villages. 

Evangelists, who devote the major portion of their 
time to work among non-Christians. 

School supervisors, who are qualified men for super- 
vision of educational work in a number of schools. 

Supervising catechists and Indian pastors. 

Support of Proteges.—Ever since the beginning of 
our foreign mission work a system of special support 
of proteges in foreign fields has been in operation. 
Through this system considerable money is secured 
in addition to the regular apportionment, because the 
system offers individuals, societies, Sunday schools 
and congregations opportunities to make definite and 
direct contributions for the foreign work. Certain 
misunderstandings, however, which prevail in regard 
to this system, need to be cleared up. It should be 
understood that patrons in America do not actually 
support definite pupils in mission schools or certain 
workers in person. No protege in any field receives 
funds directly from the Board, and it is unwise for 
patrons themselves to send money or gifts direct to 
proteges. The mission budget provides for the sup- 
port of workers and pupils in school. The sums fixed 
for their support are approximate. When a protege 
is assigned, it is with the understanding that the 


ORGANIZED FORCES ABROAD 127 


patron in America will annually contribute enough 
money for the support of one of the class of proteges 
chosen. Thus the patron does not support a boy but 
a boy’s scholarship, not a certain teacher but one of 
a number of teachers. Higher grade workers may be 
assigned by name, because they can be trusted not to 
abuse the apparent intimacy which an assignment by 
name implies. 

Protege assignments relating to the general work 
in the mission are made by the Board of Foreign Mis- 
sions; those relating to the women’s work, such as 
girls’ scholarships and Bible-women, are made by the 
women’s executive board. 

The Board of Foreign Missions now has a list of 
775 patrons supporting proteges assigned by number. 
Moreover, fifty-five individuals, societies and congre- 
gations are contributing $1,000 or more a year for 
the support of assigned foreign missionaries. 

The advantage of the protege system lies in the fact 
that patrons have the consciousness of personal repre- 
sentation through annual payments which are suffi- 
cient to educate a native Christian for mission service 
or to keep him in this service. 


THE NATIVE CHURCH 


The aim of foreign mission work is the establish- 
ment and development of a native Church, through 
which the nation is to be Christianized. This mission- 
ary goal is reached only after many decades of earn- 
est, faithful and continuous effort, during which 
numerous and intricate problems arise concerning the 
relation of the mission to the church. Their solution 


128 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


requires patience, wisdom, love and good judgment 
on the part of the native leaders as well as the mis- 
sionaries and the home board. 

Initial Mission Work.—lIn the first stages of foreign 
mission effort emphasis is laid upon the conversion 
of individuals by preaching, teaching and the life of 
the missionary. This work is called evangelization. 
The missionary then chooses the most available and 
suitable converts he has made, to help him in reaching 
others with the gospel. He trains them himself, as 
best he can, for the service they are to give, and uses 
mission funds for their maintenance and work. Be- 
cause he is their intellectual and spiritual superior 
he is the supervisor of their work. Here and there 
groups of converts are associated into more or less 
loosely organized congregations, to which the mission- 
ary ministers, the native workers serving as his assist- 
ants and substitutes. During these first stages all 
financial transactions on the mission field are in 
charge of the missionary, all Christian discipline is in 
his hands. His authority is unquestioned. As soon as 
a number of missionaries are on the field they form a 
mission organization under the direction of the home 
board. With the increase of missionaries and native 
workers a manual of rules and regulations is produced 
for the government of the details of the work and of 
the relations of missionaries and mission workers. 
With the growth of the work the mission organization 
grows in power and influence. 

Under the tutelage of the missionaries the native 
workers periodically are gathered into conferences to 
discuss questions relating to their work and to receive 


ORGANIZED FORCES ABROAD 129 


instruction for greater efficiency in it. These native 
workers’ conferences, at first, have no administrative 
powers or functions, but they are the basis on which 
the organization of the native Church is gradually 
built up. 

When the time comes for the employment of or- 
dained pastors the most reliable and promising work- 
ers of higher grade are selected, furnished with an 
elementary theological education, examined by the 
ordained missionaries and recommended through the 
Board for ordination by some synod in the home 
Church. The synod which is asked to function in this 
direction appoints one or more missionaries to per- 
form the act of ordination. The native pastor is then 
enrolled as a member of the synod in America. Mani- 
festly he cannot attend the meetings of this American 
synod. He cannot carry out its resolutions. He is 
not amenable to its discipline. He has no vital rela- 
tion to it. In every way this long-distance arrange- 
ment is unsatisfactory and anomalous. As soon as 
possible the right of the local congregations or the 
indigenous Church, though partially and _ poorly 
organized, to authorize ordination, should be recog- 
nized. 

With the growth of the mission three developments 
inevitably lead to the better organization of the native 
Church and the assumption of larger administrative 
powers and functions on its part. These developments 
are: (1) higher grade and more competent native 
pastors, together with better educated and more in- 
fluential laymen in the Church, (2) larger and better 
organized congregations, (3) increasing self-support. 


130 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


Church in Japan.—In Japan from the beginning the 
Japanese pastors and laymen have shown a more in- 
dependent spirit and have been accorded a larger 
measure of self-government. The Japanese chamber, 
or nenkwai, which meets as a body separate from the 
mission chamber, is to all intents and purposes the 
established Japanese Lutheran Church. For the pres- 
ent strictly ecclesiastical functions, such as ordina- 
tion, are being exercised by a ministerium composed 
of all ordained missionaries and Japanese pastors, to 
which lay representatives of organized congregations 
are to be added, so as to conform with our Lutheran 
principle of church polity, which recognizes the rights 
of congregations as such in the determination of the 
affairs of the organized Church. 

Synods in India.—The development of the Indian 
Lutheran Church in our mission field has been accom- 
panied during the last few years by a rapidly growing 
spirit of national self-consciousness and self-determi- 
nation, fostered by the Ghandi non-cooperation move- 
ment as a result of the infiltration of democratic 
ideals. This political movement in India has hastened 
the transfer of church functions from the mission 
organization to the Indian synods.*. There are two 
synods, the older one in the Guntur field and the more 
recently organized one in the Rajahmundry field. 
Both have assumed responsibility for the pastoral and 
evangelistic work, and the Guntur synod also has 
taken charge of primary education in the villages. 


1The Council of the India Mission is a missionary body. It has charge 
of higher education, including the higher elementary schools, lower secondary 
schools, middle schools, normal schools, high schools and college. It also con- 
trols all medical work, Bible training and other work not yet transferred 
to the synod. 





ORGANIZED FORCES ABROAD 131 


For its work each synod received a financial appro- 
priation from the Board on the recommendation of 
the mission organization. The right of ordination 
is vested in the native synods. To be sure, these In- 
dian synods are not functioning perfectly in every de- 
tail of administration, and the missionaries are 
called upon to hold at least advisory membership in 
them in order to help them; but they are gradually 
learning how to manage their affairs, and as they be- 
come more and more competent further administra- 
tive powers will be transferred to them. 


Relation to Church in America.—The problem of 
the native Church is complicated, furthermore, by 
the question of the relation of the Church in the mis- 
sion field to the Church in America. At present this 
is a burning question for most boards and missions. 
Dr. Robert E. Speer, who went to India in 1922 in 
order to discuss this question with the missions and 
churches of his denomination, writes in his report: 
“The Presbyterian missions, which were begun on the 
principle of making the presbytery in the mission field 
the general administrative mission body, of which 
American and Indian ministers would be members on 
an equality and which would be organically related 
to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church 
in the United States of America, have been obliged to 
abandon that theory in favor of a separation of the 
mission and the native presbytery. The missions on 
the field developed as bodies separate from the pres- 
byteries and handled matters of missionary adminis- 
tration and provided for the care of work supported 
from America and for the work of women, who were 


132 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


not members of the presbyteries. The presbyteries 
on their part cared for the ecclesiastical affairs of 
the Church. The view has prevailed that the Church 
in India should be independent and not subject to the 
General Assembly in America. The Indian presby- 
teries of the Presbyterian and Reformed missions 
established the independent Presbyterian Church of 
India in 1904.”’ 


Our Board is seeking to solve the same problem by 
advising the synods in India and the church in Japan 
to apply for cooperative membership in the United 
Lutheran Church in America, to be represented at its 
biennial conventions by a fixed number of elected dele- 
gates, missionaries on furlough or native pastors and 
laymen, who shall have the right of voice at all times 
and of vote on matters pertaining to their respective 
native churches. It is not claimed that this is the only 
solution. Any relationship at present must be purely 
experimental and must await the further development 
of the work and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. 
Somehow, while the native churches in the mission 
fields are to be left free to develop their own church 
life and polity, a satisfactory relationship must be 
established between the parent church in America and 
the daughter churches in the mission fields, so as to 
preserve the historical connection and the continuity 
of faith and practice. 

‘In our fields in Liberia and South America these 
problems have not yet emerged. In Liberia and 
British Guiana there are no ordained native pastors 
as yet. In Buenos Aires a former Roman Catholic 
priest, after instruction and examination by our mis- 





ORGANIZED FORCES ABROAD 133 


sionaries, has been enrolled as a member of the Hast 
Pennsylvania Synod. 

National Church Movement.—Returning to India, 
the problem of the native Church is still further com- 
plicated by the existence of a national association of 
native churches. Its Lutheran section seeks to enlist 
the support of Indian Lutherans in home mission 
work in the Rewah district. This home mission work 
is entirely supported and administered by Indian 
Lutheran Christians, and is, therefore, a commendable 
effort at self-propagation. 

Another element which enters into the solution of 
‘this vexing problem is the recent formation of Na- 
tional Christian Councils under the leadership of 
the International Missionary Council. The missions 
in India, heretofore, were associated in the National 
Missionary Council, composed entirely of missionaries. 
The constitution was changed so as to include Indians 
in the membership, and the new organization is called 
the National Christian Council. The preponderance 
of numbers is to be slightly in favor of the native 
churches, but the preponderance of influence still re- 
mains with the missions. This national attempt to 
fix the relation of the mission to the native Church 
inevitably will have a strong influence on the solution 
of the problem in each mission area; but, after all, 
the individual mission must determine the relationr- 
ship for itself, while the respective native Church in 
its field passes through its various stages of develop- 
ment. 

United Lutheran Church in India.—More impor- 
tant for us at the present time is the effort of Lutheran 


134 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


missions and churches to organize a United Lutheran 
Church in India. A tentative constitution has been 
drafted and is under discussion. Other interested 
bodies are the autonomous Gossner Evangelical Luth- 
eran Church in Chota Nagpur, the Tamil Lutheran 
Church, the Church of Sweden Mission, the Joint 
Synod of Ohio Mission, the Swedish Alliance Mission 
in the Central Provinces, and the Danish Lutheran 
Mission with headquarters in Madras. If the United 
Lutheran Church in India becomes a reality it will 
have a baptized membership of more than 250,000 and 
exert a strong influence in the Christianization of 
India as a whole. Its sphere of influence will extend 
from the southern parts of the Madras Presidency 
along the eastern coast through Bihar and Orissa, and 
into Assam and Bengal. 


In the last analysis the problem of the relationship 
of the native Church to the mission is a financial 
problem. For many years to come the Church in our 
present fields will remain financially dependent on the 
Church in America. This financial dependence can- 
not be ignored. -A sensitive point is reached, how- 
ever, when one seeks to determine relationships on 
the basis of financial dependence. In any event com- 
plete self-determination waits upon complete self- 
support. 


Native Self-support.—In Japan there are now four 
congregations which are aiming at self-support by 
contributing at least one-fourth of the pastor’s salary. 
The farthest in advance is the one in Fukuoka, which 
is nearly self-supporting. } 

In India the congregations in Guntur, Rajahmun- 


: 





ORGANIZED FORCES ABROAD 135 


dry and Rentichintala are self-supporting. All Chris- 
tians, however poor, are encouraged to make contri- 
butions. In addition to the funds appropriated by 
the Board the synods have the following sources of 
income: (1) offerings taken in the congregations on 
the first Sunday in each month, (2) special Christmas 
and Easter offerings, (3) free-will thank-offerings, 
especially at harvest festivals, (4) a contribution of 
annas 4 a year from every Christian family. In these 
ways a considerable sum is gathered for running ex- 
penses and benevolence, amounting in 1922 to $16,000. 


Vernacular Literature and Hymnology.—There are 
other important aspects of the development of the 
native Church besides the financial one, which de- 
serve consideration. One is the production of Chris- 
tian literature. The translation of the Bible, of 
course, is of primary importance. In all missions the 
Small Catechism of Luther is always translated early 
in mission history. Next to the Bible it has been 
translated into more languages than any other book. 
The translation of books, however, is only a starting 
point. The native Church must produce original 
literature in the vernacular, adapted to the genius of 
the people, and none but educated native Christian 
leaders can produce it. 

What has been said in regard to literature applies 
also to hymnology. In each mission field a native 
hymnology should be developed. In India songs writ- 
ten and sung in native style are called lyrics, and 
there are collections of them printed in Telugu and in 
Tamil. Both in our India and in our Japan missions 
the Common Service Book with its orders for min- 


136 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


isterial acts has been made available in translations. 
It may be interesting in passing to note that where 
the gown is used in India, a white one is preferred 
to a black one. 

In all matters of indifference each indigenous church 
must be allowed freedom, as long as there is no com- 
promise with pagan customs and practice. The prin- 
ciple which applies in the formation of the life and 
activity of the native Church is admirably expressed 
in Article VII of the Augsburg Confession: “To the 
true unity of the Church it is enough to agree con- 
cerning the doctrine of the gospel and the administra- 
tion of the sacraments. Nor is it necessary that hu- 
man tradition, rites, or ceremonies, instituted by men, 
should be everywhere alike.” 

There are dangerous movements, however, among 
extremists in many foreign fields today, which would 
divorce Eastern and Western Christianity even along 
fundamental doctrinal lines. These movements decry 
our Western denominationalism and then proceed to 
assert that each nation has the right and duty to de- 
velop its own indigenous Christianity, related to its 
religious teachings and traditions, rather than to the 
stream of historic Christianity. The better elements 
in all native churches, however, hold that the problem 
of doctrinal development must be worked out not by 
revolt and alienation, but by conformity with the 
truth of the gospel. Fortunately the Lutheran Church 
is not apt to be misled by false ideals of church unity. 

Lutheran Loyalty.—In South India there is a strong 
unionistic effort, whose leaders seem to be willing to 
reduce their confessional standard to the minimum 


FORCES IN THE FIELD 137 


requirement of the acceptance of the Nicene Creed; 
but they are greatly disturbed over the question of 
episcopal ordination as a necessary qualification for 
the administration of the sacraments. In decided 
contrast to this looseness is the Lutheran loyalty of 
the Gossner Christians in Chota Nagpur who, rather 
than accept absorption into another church when that 
was held out to them as the easiest way to preserve 
their mission after the war, courageously chose the 
difficult and untried path of autonomy as a native 
Lutheran church and appealed to the National Luth- 
eran Council in America for financial aid and to our 
American Lutheran mission in South India for mis- 
sionary guidance. 

It is the mission of the Lutheran Church every- 
where, in the foreign field as well as in the home land, 
to preserve and propagate the truth of the gospel of 
Jesus Christ and to administer the holy sacraments of 
Baptism and the Lord’s Supper according to the insti- 
tution of Christ. Our Church does not hesitate to co- 
operate with other churches in missionary activity 
along lines which do not involve doctrinal compro- 
mises; but it does wish to be allowed to make its dis- 
tinctive contribution to the apprehension and teach- 
ing of the truth of Christianity as recorded in the 
Sacred Scriptures. 

What we have said in this connection sufficiently 
indicates that the doctrinal and ecclesiastical prob- 
lems in the foreign field are essentially identical with 
those in the home Church, and that the Church in the 
mission field has much to learn from the experience 
of the home Church. It cannot afford to ignore the 


138 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


rock whence it was hewn. It must be an historical 
development of its model, even though it builds itself 
up as an holy temple in the Lord along distinctive 
lines of expression in conformity with the character 
and conditions of the native people, whom it is to 
serve in the pursuit of individual and social salvation, 
righteousness and holiness through Jesus Christ. 


QUESTIONS 
The Mission 


1. Define the mission as an organized agency. 

2. How may foreign mission work be conveniently classified? 

3. What is the threefold purpose of educational mission work? 

4. What aid has the government of India granted mission 
schools? 

5. Where are the mission hospitals in India located? In 
Liberia? ; 

6. What industrial mission work is conducted in India? In 
Liberia? 


The Native Church 


7. What is the aim of foreign mission work in regard to the 
native Church? 

8. What developments lead to better organization in the native 
Church? 

9. What church functions have the synods in India already 
assumed? 

10. Describe the relation of the mission and native Church 
in Japan. 

11. On what does complete self-determination in the native | 
Church wait? | 

12. Mention a number of other things besides those of govern- 
ment and self-support which hasten the development of the 
native Church. 

13. What article of the Augsburg Confession states the prin- 
ciple that applies in the formation of the characteristics 
of the life of the native Church? 

14. State this principle in your own words, 





CHAPTER VI. 
ORGANIZED FORCES AT HOME 


BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 


The Board of Foreign Missions is the organized 
agency of the home Church, first, for the cultivation 
of its foreign mission interest and activity and, sec- 
ondly, for the administration of its missionary work 
through missions established and conducted in foreign 
fields. 


A Common OQbligation.—The foreign missionary 
obligation is a common Christian obligation. Those 
who say they have no interest in foreign missions 
by that very confession acknowledge their deficiency 
as Christians and members of the Church. The great 
commission of Jesus Christ is His command to every 
disciple. Every disciple, however, cannot leave home 
and native land to teach Christianity to non-Chris- 
tians in foreign lands. The foreign missionary obli- 
gation of the majority of Christians, therefore, is dis- 
charged in some other way. Instead of personal serv- 
ice money contributions are offered for the support 
of missionaries and their work, and are accompanied 
by the prayer and intercession of the donors. 

Boards Necessary.—For the regular, orderly con- 
duct of foreign mission work by the Church in its cor- 
porate capacity, boards of foreign missions are organ- 
ized, so that suitable men and women may be pre- 

189 


140 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


pared, chosen and sent to mission fields, in order that 
they may personally carry out the common missionary 
obligation of Christians and that their work abroad 
may be adequately supported and constantly developed 
by efforts at the home base. 

Independent Missionaries.—There has been and still 
are extremists who, without waiting for a regular 
call from the Church through the Foreign Mission 
Board, undertake foreign mission work as independ- 
ent missionaries. William T. Ellis, a reliable Chris- 
tian reporter, who has seen many missions and mis- 
sionaries, writes: ‘“‘My observation leads me to con- 
clude that independent missionaries make more stir 
in the home land, where their money is raised, than in 
the foreign field. They are usually temporary.” For 
permanently successful mission work the support and 
supervision of foreign mission Boards are essential. 


THE BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS OF THE UNITED 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA 


Regular Members.—The Board of Foreign Missions 
of the United Lutheran Church in America is a body 
of twenty-one members, of whom thirteen are min- 
isters. They are elected in groups of seven by the 
United Lutheran Church at its biennial conventions, 
to serve for six years. Nominations for membership 
are made by the Board, and an alternate list of en- 
tirely different names is presented by a special com- 
mittee on nominations, so as to enable the delegates 
of the convention to make a wider choice, if they de- 
sire. There has always been a difference of opinion 
as to whether Board membership should represent 


= a ee oe 





ORGANIZED FORCES AT HOME 141 


the various synods associated in the general body, or 
whether it should be selected with regard to approxi- 
mate nearness to Board headquarters to insure more 
regular attendance and greater Board efficiency. The 
election laws of the United Lutheran Church provide 
for rotation in membership by prohibiting more than 
one immediate succession. They also aim at a wider 
distribution of Board responsibility by limiting the 
membership of any one person to two Boards at the 
same time. When the present Board of Foreign Mis- 
sions was formed at the time of the merger in 1918, 
it was composed of selected members from each of 
the three merging Boards, thus preserving the his- 
torical connection. 

Cooperating Members.—In addition to the regular 
members, elected by the United Lutheran Church, the 
Augustana and United Danish synods, because of 
their active cooperation, are entitled to elect cooperat- 
ing members of the Board, the former having three 
and the latter two. Of these five, three may be elected 
as regular members under certain conditions by the 
United Lutheran Church. The Women’s Missionary 
Society of the United Lutheran Church appoints two 
advisory members. The Icelandic synod cooperates 
in the support of a missionary in Japan. 

Function of the Board.—The Board is incorporated 
under the laws of the state of Maryland ‘“‘to carry on, 
superintend and promote the work of furthering 
Christianity and charity, supporting and furthering 
Christian missions and charitable work in foreign 
lands or elsewhere in accordance with the purposes 
and constitution of the United Lutheran Church in 


142 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


America.” The constitution of the Board further de- 
fines its object and functions as follows: “It shall 
have authority to call, appoint, contract with and com- 
mission all missionaries, and in consultation with its 
missionary organizations on the fields to formulate 
rules for the conduct of its foreign work.” Under its 
charter and constitution the Board has full power to 
promote foreign missionary interest and effort in the 
home Church and to administer and develop the work 
of its missions abroad. 

At its first meeting after each biennial convention 
of the United Lutheran Church the Board reorgan- 
izes by electing its officers’ and appointing its stand- 
ing committees. The president and vice-president, to- 
gether with four other members constitute the execu- 
tive committee, which acts as a finance committee and 
attends to emergency business ad interim. For each 
mission field and also for a number of home base de- 
partments there is a standing committee. 

The Board has established headquarters at The 
Lutheran Foreign Missions House, 18 East Mt. Vernon 
Place, Baltimore, Maryland, where its office is located 
and rooms are available for missionaries on furlough. 


General Secretaries—The general or executive 
secretaries are elected by the Board for an indefinite 
period to administer the work of the Board. To them 
is largely committed the general oversight of the vari- 
ous departments of work at home and abroad. At the 
time of the merger each merging board furnished a 
general secretary, but Dr. Charles L. Brown has since 

1The officers of the Board since the merger have been: President, Ezra 


K. Bell, D.D.; vice-president, Prof. C. Theodore Benze, D.D.; recording sec- 
retary, George Drach, D.D.; treasurer, L. B. Wolf, D.D. 


‘VIEN] ‘ATINVY NVYFHLAT apaiay 








UpPEr PICTURE: OSAKA, JAPAN, STREET PREACHING TENT. 
MIDDLE PICTURE: CHINESE MODES OF TRAVELING. 
LOWER PICTURE: THE STREET IN BUENOS AIRES IN WHICH 
Our LUTHERAN CHAPEL, SCHOOL AND MISSIONARY’S 

HoME ARE LOCATED. 


ORGANIZED FORCES AT HOME 143 


departed this life, leaving for the present two general 
secretaries. Dr. L. B. Wolf, who has seen twenty-five 
years of service as a missionary in India and fifteen 
years as a general secretary, supervises the depart- 
ments of home base, candidates, campaigns, mission- 
aries on furlough and transportation, and has charge 
of the correspondence with the missions in Liberia, 
South America and China. Dr. George Drach, who has 
served as a general secretary for twenty years, is sec- 
retary for India, Japan, literature, publicity, mission 
study, patrons, proteges, official documents, stereop- 
ticon lectures and curios. He edits the English 
monthly magazine, The Foreign Missionary, of which 
he has been editor for seventeen years. The German 
monthly magazine, Der Missionsbote, has been edited 
by Rev. R. C. G. Bielinski since 1900. The general 
secretaries usually are the official representatives of 
the Board at church conventions and meetings. In 
September, 1924, Rev. J. Frank Heilman, D.D., be- 
came the Board’s Field Secretary. 

Each secretary in his office-work freely consults the 
others and strives for the closest and most effective 
cooperation in the exercise of the functions of the 
Board. During the incumbency of Dr. C. L. Brown 
the secretaries formed a cabinet, which met weekly 
or oftener. Matters requiring Board action are taken 
by the secretary in charge to the respective sub-com- 
mittee of the Board for discussion and recommenda- 
.tion. Thus all matters presented in official corre- 
spondence from the India mission are prepared for 
Board action by the secretary for India, reviewed by 
the other secretaries, and considered by the India mis- 


144 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


sion committee before presentation to the Board. All 
matters pertaining to candidates are handled in the 
same way by the candidate secretary. When the 
Board meets it has before it for consideration and 
action the carefully prepared reports of its various 
committees, which makes for efficiency in administra- 
tion and dispatch in business. 

In relation to its foreign missions the Board is the 
highest authority in the Church, subject only to the 
constitution of the United Lutheran Church or its 
resolutions in convention assembled. It reports all 
its acts and plans for approval to the biennial conven- 
tions of the general body, and sends a copy of the 
minutes of every Board meeting to each member of 
the Executive Board of the United Lutheran Church. 
This Board has power under the constitution to give 
or withhold consent for the inauguration of a cam- 
paign for the raising of funds outside of the regular 
budget. All requests for amounts of money to be 
apportioned to the constituent synods and congrega- 
tions must be recommended to the convention of the 
United Lutheran Church by its Executive Board, but 
every Board has the right to ask the convention to 
grant it more, and if it can convince the convention, 
it will get more. 

Women’s Missionary Society.—The relation of the 
Board of Foreign Missions to the Women’s Missionary 
Society is that of intimate cooperation. The society — 
functions as a separately organized and incorporated 
agency of the Church for the gathering and adminis- 
tration of funds for women’s work. It has made itself 
financially responsible for all women’s work in the 





ORGANIZED FORCES AT HOME 145 


foreign fields. Its contributions are counted as special 
funds in excess of the apportionment. It determines 
the amounts to be devoted to the various departments 
and operations of the work of the women missionaries. 
It provides funds for their salaries, allowances and 
all their expenses. It also confers and corresponds 
through its candidate committee with all women can- 
didates and recommends their appointment to the 
Board of Foreign Missions. The Women’s Missionary 
Society functions ad interim through an executive 
board, with an elected executive secretary’ and a num- 
ber of appointed departmental secretaries and com- 
mittees. The executive headquarters of the society 
are in Pittsburgh, Penna., its literature headquarters 
are in the Muhlenberg Building, Philadelphia. 

The Women’s Missionary Society furnishes approxi- 
mately one-fifth of all the money required for the con- 
duct of our foreign mission work and is, therefore, 
a mighty factor in the prosecution of the work. It 
also devotes a large part of its energy to the cultiva- 
tion of the home base through the publication of liter- 
ature, pamphlets, leaflets, study courses, a monthly 
magazine, Lutheran Woman’s Work, and through con- 
ventions of women. It is well organized, reaching 
down to the congregation and up to independent cor- 
porate existence. A working agreement has been 
made between the Board of Foreign Missions and the 
Women’s Executive Board in the interest of harmoni- 
ous cooperation. While the society does not confine 
its activity to foreign missions but serves as an aux- 
iliary to all the Boards of the Church, it finds its chief 


é 1Mrs. Helen C. Beegle was the executive secretary from the merger to the 
time of her death in 1924. Her successor is Miss Amelia D. Kemp. 


146 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


inspiration and largest activity in the sphere of the 
foreign mission enterprise. 

While other organizations of the Church—the 
Luther League, other Young People’s Societies, the 
Brotherhood of the United Lutheran Church, and the 
Laymen’s Movement for Stewardship—are not di- 
rectly related to the Board of Foreign Missions, each 
in its own sphere and way makes a real contribution 
to the development of the foreign mission spirit and 
effort of the home Church. This is as it should be, 
for the entire membership of the Church and not 
merely a part of it, is the missionary society of 
Christ’s disciples. 

Missionary Societies in Europe.—This truth is 
brought out clearly in a study of the relation of the 
foreign missionary societies to the Church in Europe. 
While in America the foreign mission boards have 
become the creatures of the churches and are amen- 
able to them,’ in Europe the missionary societies are 
still independent organizations not subject to the con- 
trol of the churches. Dr. Gustav Warneck in his 
epoch-making Missionslehre devotes many pages to a 
long discussion and justification of independent so- 
cieties. He shows how the theological attitude of the 
churches in Germany and England defeated the effort 
of individuals and groups of Christians during the 
seventeenth century to arouse the Church as such to 
official participation in foreign missions and thus 
forced the missionary circles to organize independent 
societies. 


1 At first, during half of the nineteenth century, the Protestant churches 
in America, following the example of British churches, functioned through 
missionary societies not organically related to the’ existing church. Later 
these societies were brought under the control of the organized churches. 


ORGANIZED FORCES AT HOME 147 


Seventeenth Century Attitude—In all candor it 
must be said that the Protestant Church of the seven- 
teenth century believed in foreign missions with re- 
strictions, and encouraged the preaching of the gospel 
to non-Christians only in a limited sphere, thus creat- 
ing the impression that foreign missions is a mere 
- appendage and not a vital function of the life of the 
Church. Its official attitude was determined by a 
number of extreme views, which were unfortunate 
products of the post-Reformation period. 

Limitation of Earthly Calling Overemphasized.—It 
overemphasized the obligation of one’s official occu- 

pation to such a degree as to kill missionary incentive. 
It held that a man’s Christian obligations of service 
are determined and limited by his earthly calling. A 
pastor’s sphere of labor, it asserted, is to be restricted 
to the congregation which has called him to be its 
pastor. It is the duty of the government to provide 
for the preservation of Christianity in the homeland 
and its propagation in the colonies. Thus the king 
of Denmark took the initiative in sending Ziegenbalg 
and Pluetschau to his Danish colony in South India. 
If the missionary obligation happens to fall within 
the sphere of one’s appointed task, then he must ful- 
fill it in the pursuit of his calling. Outside of his 
appointed sphere of labor he has no missionary obli- 
gation. If a pastor finds Jews or other non-Christians 
in his parish, he is under obligation to preach the 
Gospel to them, when they come to his church; but he 
has no call to go outside of his parish. If a Christian 
happens to meet a non-Christian he should testify 
concerning Christianity; but he is under no obligation 


148 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


to go out of the appointed way of his earthly calling 
to seek and to save non-Christians. The interpreta- 
tion of the Lord’s commission as a common missionary 
obligation for all Christians, as a duty laid upon the 
whole Church, the official Church, was not accepted 
and taught. Preachers chose the last verses of the 
Gospel according to St. Matthew and theologians cited 
them as proof texts for the doctrine of the Trinity or 
of holy baptism, of Christ’s omnipresence in the 
Church, or of some other Christian doctrine, without 
any reference whatever to the missionary purpose of 
Christ. If the missionary thought was introduced at 
all, it was quickly dismissed with the assertion that 
the command of Christ was given to His twelve apos- 
tles, who fulfilled it by preaching the Gospel in all the 
then known world and by leaving to posterity the 
sacred record of their missionary preaching and 
teaching, in which any man anywhere may find Christ 
and salvation through Him. Fidelity to one’s calling 
in life was used as an excuse for not doing foreign 
mission work. 

Disregarded Non-Christians.—Another post-Refor- 
mation overemphasis was that laid on the preservation 
of true doctrine and pure faith to the disparagement 
of missionary effort. The members of the Church 
were led to suppose that the one and only needful 
thing for them to do was to remain steadfast in the 
Christian faith unto the end, that they might gain the 
crown of everlasting life, without regard to the fate 
of non-Christians. This extreme position was the 
result of contention against Roman Catholic work- 
righteousness on the one hand and, on the other, 


a el a 


ORGANIZED FORCES AT HOME 149 


against the fanaticism of sectarians. To what ex- 
treme outbursts seventeenth century preachers and 
teachers were led may be observed from their pub- 
lished sermons and books, in which they derided the 
foreign mission activity of the Jesuits and other Ro- 
man Catholic orders as pharisaical and quoted against 
them the words of Matthew 23:15: “Ye compass sea 
and land to make one proselyte.” Foreign mission 
activity was denounced as another evidence of the 
false teaching of the Papists concerning salvation by 
works. Some preachers, however, were charitable 
enough to express the hope that the remnants of 
truth in Roman Catholicism might accomplish some 
good among idolatrous heathen. It does not seem to 
have occurred to them to encourage the Protestant 
churches to follow the example of the Roman Catholic 
Church in its foreign mission activity. Their only 
concern was to preserve the faith pure against all 
false teachers. All their energies were so fully occu- 
pied in the defence of the faith that they not only 
neglected but also condemned aggressive missionary 
effort. 

Second Advent.—A third overemphasis relates to 
the last things and the second advent of Christ. The 
trials and tribulations of the long, long years of con- 
flict between the forces of Roman Catholicism and 
Protestantism, especially the dreadful Thirty Years’ 
War and its aftermath, led many to believe that the 
end of the world was near. They reasoned that it 
would be hopeless and practically impossible to do 
anything more for the conversion of the unbelieving 
and non-Christian world before the Lord would come 


150 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


in His glory. The one thing to do under the circum- 
stances was to make sure of one’s own salvation and 
be ready for His second advent. A recurrence of this 
attitude, though in a somewhat different form, has 
appeared in our day in the teachings of the Pre- 
Millenialists. 

Church and State-—A fourth impediment to the 
Church’s pursuit of missionary effort was its unfor- 
tunate relation to the State. The State Church shifted 
its missionary obligation to the State which supported 
and controlled it. This unholy alliance of Church and 
State in Europe still acts as a hindrance to missionary 
activity and continues to make the existence of inde- 
pendent missionary societies necessary and justifiable. 

Fortunately in America the application of the prin- 
ciple of the separation of church and state has made 
it possible and necessary for the Church in its official, 
corporate capacity to conduct, develop and support 
foreign mission work through organized church 
boards. 


THE HOME CHURCH 


Back of the Board of Foreign Missions, back of the 
native Church and the mission in the foreign field, 
back of the foreign missionaries is the home Church; 
and the foreign mission work succeeds to the extent 
to which the home Church cevotes its energy to this 
enterprise. The home Church is the base of supplies 
and reinforcements for the men and money needed in 
the enterprise. It is also the source of the missionary 
prayers, on which Christ caused both the increase of 
laborers and funds to depend. He said, ‘‘Pray ye the 
Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers into the 


ORGANIZED FORCES AT HOME 151 


harvest.” This dependence on prayer emphasizes the 
missionary obligation of the Church as an objective 
which is reached only by the closest fellowship with 
God and by the common desire of Christians. That 
for which the Church prays it earnestly wants. Those 
who do not pray for missions and missionaries cannot 
be whole-hearted fellow-workers with God in the ful- 
fillment of His great and gracious plans for the re- 
demption of the world through Jesus Christ. 


It would have been within range of the possible for 
God to have committed the Christianization of the 
world to His legions of angels, and they willingly and 
gladly would have served His redemptive purpose as 
heavenly messengers to the world. Are they not filled 
with joy over one sinner who repents? Angels played 
a conspicuous part in the Old Testament during the 
period of preparation for the new dispensation in 
Christ. For the angels, however, God has reserved 
the task of assistance in the last things at the end of 
the world, while to men, as members of His Church 
on earth, He has entrusted the enterprise of spread- 
ing His gospel among all people until the nations shall 
have been Christianized. 


The cultivation of the missionary spirit and activity 
of the home Church by the Board of Foreign Missions 
is carried on for the sake of the home Church. The 
Board simply acts as the recognized and organized 
agency of the Church. The Board’s powers are dele- 
gated not inherent. 

The usual avenues of home base cultivation by the 
Board are correspondence, literature and deputation 
service. 


152 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


Cultivation by Correspondence.—The home base 
correspondence of the Board covers a wide range in 
its subject matter and in its geographical area. In- 
formation, advice, instruction, encouragement and 
help are requested by missionaries on furlough as well 
as in the field, by officials of the Church, by other mis- 
sionary boards and societies, by pastors of congrega- 
tions, officers of societies, Sunday schools, superin- 
tendents and teachers, candidates, patrons, friends 
and supporters. Critics, also, are honored by courte- 
ous replies. The largest volume of correspondence 
relates to finance in some form or another. The tele- 
phone, telegraph and cable are used for messages 
which require prompt attention. 

Missionary Literature.—The second avenue of cul- 
tivation is that of literature. In order to keep the 
entire Church informed concerning all our foreign 
mission work the Board publishes a large volume of 
literature. In addition to the biennial report which 
appears in the printed minutes of the conventions of 
the United Lutheran Church, there is an Annual Re- 
port of the Foreign Missions, in which the mission- 
aries themselves relate what they are doing and plan- 
ning. A copy of this annual report is sent to each 
pastor and to others who desire it. Occasional pam- 
phlets and leaflets are published for definite purposes. 

Epiphany Season—The United Lutheran Church 
has designated the Epiphany season of the Church 
Year as the period during which pastors in their con- 
gregations and schools are to devote special attention 
to foreign missions and to make special efforts for the 
support of this great cause. The Gospels and Epistles 


ORGANIZED FORCES AT HOME 153 


of this season adapt themselves admirably to mission- 
ary interpretation. The season is to close with For- 
eign Mission Day observed throughout the Church. 
For this day the Board prepares and publishes a for- 
eign missionary service and furnishes envelopes for 
the special offering. Other seasons and days also are 
most appropriately chosen by many congregations for 
holding missionary festivals either in the church or in 
the open air. 

Magazines.—The cultivation of foreign mission in- 
terest and effort through literature is carried on by 
the Board in the publication of monthly missionary 
magazines, one in English The Foreign Missionary, 
and one in German, Der Missionsbote. A single sub- 
scription for one year is fifty cents. Club rates are 
lower. By reading one of these magazines one keeps 
in constant touch with the work and workers in the 
foreign fields. Lutheran Woman’s Work, the maga- 
zine of the Women’s Missionary Society, covers in one 
sense a more restricted field of interest; because it is 
devoted in particular to women’s missionary work, 
and in another sense, a wider field, because it also re- 
ports the activity of the women of the Church in other 
missionary, benevolent and educational enterprises. 

Deputation Service.—The third avenue of home 
base cultivation is deputation service. The presenta- 
tion of the cause by missionaries on furlough and 
Board secretaries and agents is very necessary and 
desirable. Everybody likes to hear a missionary re- 
late his or her experiences and express his or her mis- 
sionary convictions. Many young men and women 
can trace their personal interest in foreign missions 


154 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


to the personality and addresses of some experienced 
and magnetic missionary. For more general or tech- 
nical addresses the secretaries of the Board are avail- 
able. The Foreign Mission Board enjoys an advantage 
over other church Boards in the matter of propaganda 
on account of the almost continuous presence of fur- 
loughed missionaries in America. 

For those who cannot readily secure an address by. 
a missionary or secretary, just when they want it, a 
good substitute is offered in a stereopticion lecture. 
Twenty-two excellent lectures have been made avail- 
able and are being widely and satisfactorily used. 

The Pastor as a Missionary Force.—When you trace 
the matter of home base cultivation to its ultimate 
source, you must go back of ‘the Board to the pastor 
of the congregation. He is the man on whom depends 
the support and development of the work in the for- 
eign fields. If he fails as a missionary force, the 
enterprise fails. He is the key of the missionary prob- 
lem. In the main the forward movement of the 
Church for carrying Christianity into the non-Chris- 
tian world will stand or fall with the ministry. 

It is every pastor’s ministerial duty to cultivate the 
missionary interest and activity of his congregation 
(1) in his public preaching and teaching, (2) in his 
society and Sunday school work, (3) in his financial 
plans, (4) in his public and private prayers, and (5) 
in his influence on the lives of young men and women 
for service in and for the Church. 

All gospel preaching should have a threefold  onjels 
tive: the conversion of sinners, the edification of be- 


ORGANIZED FORCES AT HOME 155 


lievers, and the extension of the truth and reign of 
Christianity. 

Not only in occasional missionary sermons and ad- 
dresses, which are often needed, but also in all public 
instruction and exhortation in sermons, Sunday school 
addresses, catechetical lessons and religious conversa- 
tions the preacher of the gospel must present to his 
congregation, as clearly and constantly as he urges 
the need and the way of personal salvation, the under- 
lying motives which must impel all true disciples of 
Christ as members of His Church to share in the effort 
to make other disciples. 

Missionary Motives.—The primary missionary mo- 
tives may be defined as being (1) the feeling of Chris- 
tian sympathy for fellow-sinners, (2) the impulse of 
self-surrender to Christ, and (8) the passion of serv- 
ice for His kingdom. 

Sympathy.—In the study of the life of Christ one 
is deeply impressed by His remarkable sympathy for 
sinful and sinning, sorrowful and suffering human 
beings. He had compassion on the multitudes. He 
was infinitely compassionate. As we hear Him calling 
the weary and heavily laden to come to Him for rest, 
as we see His miracles performed to deliver sinners 
from physical, mental, moral and spiritual disease, 
as we follow Him on the way to the cross, we learn 
what true sympathy is and what it strives to do. 
Through Christ humanitarian pity, which is instinc- 
tive in every human heart, is transformed into Chris- 
tian compassion, which understands and judges all 
sin as disobedience to God, all human suffering as the 


156 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


wages of sin, and knows that only by forgiveness and 
reconciliation with God can sin and all its conse- 
quences be removed. The description of non-Chris- 
tian life in heathen and Moslem lands is pathetic for 
any Christian ear, but only when the lot of non-Chris- 
tians is portrayed as the inevitable result of the reign 
of evil and of the absence of the redeeming truth, 
heavenly grace and sanctifying power of Christianity, 
can we win men and women as missionaries and se- 
cure money for foreign missions to any adequate de- 
gree. The missionary motive of sympathy is that of 
Christian sympathy for lost souls and not mere hu- 
manitarian pity. 

Self-Surrender.—The second missionary motive is 
the impulse of personal and complete self-surrender 
to Christ as the Saviour and Master of the lives of 
His redeemed people. In the training of those won- 
derful three years of companionship with Christ His 
disciples learned nothing more thoroughly than that 
Christ, their Teacher, was their Master, the Master 
of their lives in life and in death. Once He asked the 
Twelve: “Are ye able to drink of the cup, that I shall 
drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism, that I 
am baptized with?” He referred to His own complete 
self-surrender to His Father. They said: ‘We are 
able.” They were able. They followed in His steps. 
Christ asks this complete self-surrender of all His 
disciples. The blood of martyrs must flow in the home 
Church as well as in the foreign field, if the mission- 
ary enterprise is to fulfill the expectation of Christ. 
“We are able,” able either for personal service abroad 
or able for the sacrifice of time, talents and money— 


ORGANIZED FORCES AT HOME 157 


will always be the response of Christ’s true disciples 
to the missionary appeal. 

Service.—The third compelling missionary motive 
is passion for service to Christ and, for His sake, to 
fellow-men. Christian love is not mere sentiment. 
It is passion for service. It is love for Christ made 
perfect in love for fellow-men, especially for those 
who are not yet lovers of Jesus, who, indeed, are His 
enemies as non-Christians. Greater love has no man 
than this, that he love non-Christians. Moreover, true 
love always gives to the limit of giving. Peter 
learned, all the apostles learned, all disciples must 
learn and teach others that loving Christ is not a sen- 
timental matter of presuming to love Christ more than 
any one else loves Him, but a matter of loving Him so 
much and so truly, that the lambs and sheep of His 
fold are fed and multiplied. In the universal ministry 
of missions every lover of Jesus may and must share. 

Missionary Information.—In addition to presenting 
the missionary motives and the other biblical foun- 
dations of foreign missions, the pastor should keep his 
people informed concerning the foreign mission enter- 
prises of the Church. Activity, generosity and prayer 
wait on knowledge. Many church members are pro- 
vincial in their interests and outlook and need to be 
encouraged to know more about the wider activities 
of the Church. In the local congregation the giving 
of missionary information should not be restricted to 
a missionary society. It should be a recurring ele- 
ment in the pastor’s sermons and addresses. It should 
be promoted by him in Sunday school and mission 
study classes. The Sunday school library should con- 


158 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


tain good missionary books, especially missionary 
biography. Missionary magazines should be read in 
every Christian home. One pastor with a fine mis- 
sionary spirit calls the attention of his Sunday school 
and sometimes of his congregation to interesting ar- 
ticles in The Foreign Missionary or The Lutheran. 
Another displays pages of these papers and of others, 
which contain pictures and striking facts concerning 
missions, on the bulletin board in the vestibule of his 
church. Another pastor devotes a part of each meet- 
ing of the Church Council to a discussion of the wider 
church problems and activities. There are many ways 
in which a thoughtful and energetic pastor with a 
missionary spirit may keep his people informed and 
interested in the work of the Church. 

In general it may be said that a congregation can- 
not rise to a high level of missionary activity if it has 
not a missionary-minded pastor, and that missionary 
mindedness should be produced in the theological 
seminary. This statement sufficiently fixes the mis- 
sionary responsibility of the teachers of our theolog- 
ical students. 


Missionary Giving.—Missionary interest leads to 
increasingly generous missionary giving. There are 
two methods of missionary giving in vogue in our 
ehurches, each of which has its distinct advantage. 
One is systematic giving by means of duplex envel- 
opes, whereby most of the apportionments of the 
Church are raised. The other is direct personal giv- 
ing for special missionary objects. 

Reference has already been made in a previous 
chapter to special contributions for the support of 


ORGANIZED FORCES AT HOME 159 


proteges and foreign mission pastors. There are also 
other methods of direct giving for foreign mission 
objects, such as bequests, annuity gifts, memorial 
gifts, the support of Young People’s Parishes Abroad 
and response to such special appeals as that of the 
Foreign Mission Forward Fund. While it is the 
pastor’s first duty to see that his congregation pays 
the full apportionment, no one who knows the finan- 
cial resources of our Church will assert that they are 
limited to a response adequate only for paying an 
apportionment. Large enough demands have never 
— yet been made upon the money power of our Lutheran 
Church in America. Some congregations are coming 
to see that they ought to contribute as much for needs 
outside their own congregational interests as for con- 
gregational expenses. This is a reasonable and good 
standard for most congregations to adopt. In any 
event every earnest pastor will strive to increase the 
number of givers in his congregation by appeals based 
on the sense of Christian stewardship. To the re- 
peated and insistently asserted claims of local inter- 
ests someone has written the following apt reply: 
“The greatest challenge that can be set before Chris- 
tian discipleship today is the task of taking the Chris- 
tian message and the Christian spirit to all parts of 
the world, into which they have not yet entered. If 
a widespread response to that challenge will come, 
there will be a new access of Christian energy for the 
other undertakings of the Church.” Another has put 
the same thought into this striking sentence: ‘The 
light which shines farthest, shines brightest nearest 
home.” 


160 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


Recruiting.—The pastor, furthermore, has a won- 
derful opportunity to help the Board of Foreign Mis- 
sions secure recruits for foreign service by presenting 
to his young people the call for personal missionary 
service. He will not fail to make it clear to every 
member of his congregation that the conquest of the 
world for Christ is the affair of every Christian; but 
he must also endeavor to secure the offering of life in 
response to the missionary call. No joy in the Chris- 
tian ministry exceeds the joy of having spiritual sons 
and daughters in the service of the Church as min- 
isters, missionaries and deaconesses. 

Missionary Praying.—It is the pastor’s supreme 
privilege to pray and to teach others to pray for the 
fulfilment of Christ’s redemptive world-program. 
Jesus has taught us to pray, “Hallowed be Thy name; 
Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done.” All three 
petitions have a definite missionary content. How 
can the name of God be hallowed in all the world, 
unless it is known to all men and revered by all? How 
can the kingdom of God come to all men, unless the 
Gospel is preached in all the world? How can the will 
of God be done on earth unless men everywhere know 
what His will is and how it is to be done? Indeed, 
every petition of the Lord’s Prayer has a missionary 
meaning, for it is a corporate prayer. What each one 
asks for himself he asks at the same time for all other 
men. The ultimate object of the prayer is the mis- 
Sionary purpose of making all men the children of 
the Father in heaven. 

All other methods for the cultivation of missionary 
interest and effort will fail unless they are begun, con- 


ORGANIZED FORCES AT HOME 161 


tinued and ended in prayer for the missionary enter- 
prise. The following are proper subjects of mission- 
ary prayer in public and private: (1) For the Board 
of Foreign Missions, that divine guidance may be 
vouchsafed the men and women who are held respon- 
sible for the conduct of the mission work of the 
Church; (2) For the missionaries overseas, that they 
may be preserved in health, encouraged in their effort 
and may win many souls for Christ; (3) For the na- 
tive Christian workers, on whom the heavier burden 
of mission work falls, that they may become safe and 
efficient leaders of the native Church; (4) For all 
Christian converts, that they may remain steadfast 
in the faith and so witness for Christ that Christian- 
ity may permeate the entire life of the nation; (5) 
For all non-Christians, that the Gospel may speedily 
reach them and turn them from darkness to light and 
from the power of Satan to Christ, the Saviour of the 
world. 

Concerning the singing of missionary hymns, I need 
say nothing further than that they are deservedly 
popular, because they express a vital Christian inter- 
est and hope. 

The missionary delinquency of the home Church is 
the theme of a poem with an unusually powerful 
appeal for great missionary zeal. It was written 
after the author had seen the statue of General Gor- 
don at Khartoum in Africa. His face is turned to- 
wards the great desert and the unoccupied areas of 
the dark continent. There and elsewhere a thousand 
million of our generation are waiting for the gospel 
of Jesus Christ. 


162 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


“The strings of camels come in single file, 
Bearing their burdens o’er the desert sand; 
Swiftly the boats go plying on the Nile, 
The needs of men are met on every hand. 
But still I wait 
For the messenger of God who cometh late. 


“T see the cloud of dust rise in the plain, 
The measured tread of troops falls on the ear; 
The soldier comes the Empire to maintain, 
Bringing the pomp of war, the reign of fear. 
But still I wait; 
The messenger of Peace, he cometh late. 


“They set me looking o’er the desert drear, 
Where broodeth darkness as the deepest night. 

From many a mosque there comes the call to prayer; 
I hear no voice that calls on Christ for light. 


ma oF wr 


But still I wait 
For the messenger of Christ who cometh late.” 


QUESTIONS 
The Board of Foreign Missions 


. What are the two functions of the Board of Foreign Mis- 


sions? 


. How is the Board of Foreign Missions constituted? 
. Name the executive officers of the Board of Foreign Mis- 


sions. 
Where are the headquarters of the Board? 


. What is the relation of the Women’s Missionary Society 


to the Board of Foreign Missions? 


. State the difference in the relationship of Foreign Mission 


Boards in America and missionary societies in Europe to 
the Church. 


. What was the official Church attitude to foreign missions 


in the seventeenth century? 
The Home Church 


. What are the usual avenues of home base cultivation by 


the Board? 


. What missionary literature do the Board of Foreign Mis- 


sions and the Women’s Missionary Society publish? 


. In what ways should the pastor of the congregation culti- 


vate the missionary interest and activity of his people? 


. What are the primary missionary motives? : 
. Mention five proper subjects of missionary prayer. 
. In what ways may individuals, societies, schools and con- 


gregations make special contributions for definite mis- 
sionary objectives? 


CHAPTER VII. 
INTERNATIONAL FORCES 


Missions and Governments.—The foreign mission 
enterprise inevitably creates international relations. 
The Christians of one nation send their representa- 
tives as missionaries to the non-Christians of other 
nations and at once a relationship is established, 
which involves not only the kingdom of God but also 
the kingdoms of this world in their official relations. 
That is why the subject of Missions and Governments 
is a perpetually absorbing problem for both govern- 
ments and missions. How important this problem is 
for governments, not only because it is related to the 
question of the citizenship of missionaries but also to 
questions involved in holding real estate, above all, to 
the questions of religious liberty and the propagation 
of religion, may be observed in a study of the man- 
dates, which the allied nations of Europe assumed in 
various parts of the world after the war. It is grati- 
fying to note that in practically all of these mandates 
the rights of religious freedom for the inhabitants of 
the mandated territories and of Christian missionary 
effort in non-Christian lands are assured. 

Provisions for religious toleration have been em- 
bodied in the constitutions of Palestine, in the treaty 
of Irak, formerly called Mesopotamia, and in the draft 
of the constitution for Egypt. In the mandates for 

163 


164 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


Syria, and Lebanon, approved by the Council of the 
League of Nations, three articles relate to religious 
liberty, from which the following extracts are taken: 


“The mandatory will insure to all complete freedom 
of conscience and the free exercise of all forms of wor- 
ship, subject only to the maintenance of public order 
and morals.” “The activities of religious missions 
shall in no wise be restricted, nor shall their members 
be subject to any restrictive measures on the ground 
of nationality, provided their activities are confined 
to the domain of religion.” “The religious missions 
may also concern themselves with education and re- 
lief, subject to the general right of regulation and con- 
trol by the mandatory, or of the states under the man- 
date, in regard to education, public instruction and 
charitable relief.” 

The mandates for Africa, including those for British 
Togoland, British Cameroons, British East Africa or 
Tanganyika Territory, French Togoland, French 
Cameroons and Belgian East Africa contain the fol- 
lowing article: 

“The mandatory shall ensure in the territory com- 
plete freedom of conscience and the free exercise of 
all forms of worship, which are consonant with public 
order and morality. Missionaries, who are nationals 
of states, members of the League of Nations, shall be 
free to enter the territory and to travel and reside 
therein, to acquire and possess property, to erect reli- 
gious buildings, and to open schools throughout the 
territories, it being understood, however, that the 
mandatory shall have the right to exercise such con- 
trol as may be necessary for the maintenance of public 


INTERNATIONAL FORCES 165 


order and good government, and to take all measures 
required for such control.” 

The supra-nationalism of Christianity as a mission- 
ary religion is thus affirmed in the mandates, despite 
the continued prohibition of the return of German 
missionaries to some of their former fields. 

Missionary Avioms.—It is an axiom of missionary 
policy in relation to governments that missionaries 
are to be obedient to the powers which govern in their 
mission fields, and are to instruct and influence their 
converts to be obedient. They are to remember that 
it is written: “Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler 
of thy people.” They are to observe the injunction 
of the apostle Paul, that “Supplications, prayers, 
intercessions and giving of thanks be made for all 
men; for kings, and for all that are in authority,” 
for the sake of a “quiet and peaceable life in all godli- 
ness and honesty.” 

A second: axiom is that missionaries are to refrain 
from active participation in politics or political move- 
ments. Nevertheless, there are occasions when mis- 
sionaries, because of gross injustice to them or their 
converts, may be compelled to appeal for protection 
against local governments to the nations of their 
citizenship. Missionaries have played a prominent 
part in the abolition of slavery’ and more recently in 
the restriction of the opium and liquor traffic. On 
the whole Christian missionaries have been the most 
law-abiding, peaceful and peace-making aliens in non- 
Christian lands, rendering to Cesar the things which 
belong to Ceesar. 


1David Livingstone. 


166 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


German Missions.—The relations of German mis- 
sionaries and their home societies to the governments 
at war with the Central Powers, were sadly disturbed 
during the war. All Germans, including missionaries, 
in the colonies of the allied nations were interned or 
repatriated. As a consequence German missions 
were left without missionary supervision and without 
mission funds. Some of them were transferred to 
friendly societies and boards in Europe and America. 
Others were left utterly destitute and helpless. After 
the war the exclusion of German missionaries as a 
political policy was continued for varying periods. 
In some colonies and mandated areas, such as Pales- 
tine, Hong Kong, New Guinea, the Union of South 
Africa and its mandated area, the restrictions were 
soon removed. In 1923 several German missionaries 
were permitted to return to the former Leipsic mis- 
sion field in the Tanganyika territory. In all the 
affected areas, including India, the British govern- 
ment agreed to make exceptions in the case of in- 
dividual missionaries, who were employed by recog- 
nized societies. Recognized societies are those which 
have been recommended by the Conference of Mis- 
Sionary Societies in Great Britain and Ireland, or by 
the Foreign Missions Conference of North America. 
Certain Swedish, Danish and Swiss Societies, also, 
are included. Missionaries who are not sent out in 
the service of these recognized societies are required 
to give personal pledge of loyalty and to obtain an 
individual permit, issued on the advice of the govern- 
ment of that part of the empire which is concerned. 


In 1924, after considerable effort, our Board se- 


INTERNATIONAL FORCES 167 


cured the return to India of two former Schleswig- 
Holstein society missionaries, Rev. Anders Andersen 
and Rev. Hans Toft, now Danish citizens, who with 
their families sailed for India from England in Sep- 
tember, 1924. They are now at work in the Jeypore 
field in the service of our Board, which is one of the 
recognized societies and which has had charge of this 
field ever since the outbreak of the war in August, 
1914. 

The dilemma of the German missionary societies 
after the war was increased by the conditions of 
German exchange. With the mark at its prevailing 
low value it was practically impossible from a finan- 
cial point of view for German societies to send 
out missionaries or to support their work abroad. 
For several years the National Lutheran Council has 
helped the following European missions by an annual 
expenditure of about $125,000: The Berlin Society’s 
missions in the Canton and Shantung provinces, 
China, the Schleswig-Holstein Society’s mission in 
the southern part of the Canton Province, China, the 
Finnish Lutheran Society’s missions in China and 
Japan, the Gossner mission in Chota Nagpur, India, 
the Hermannsburg mission in South Africa, and to 
some extent the Leipsic mission in Tanganyika ter- 
ritory, East Africa, which in 1922 was transferred to 
the Augustana Synod. Other former German mis- 
sions have been preserved by interested constituencies 
in America, as noted in a subsequent paragraph. As 
matters still stand in Germany, unless there is speedy 
improvement, many years may elapse before the Ger- 
man societies become financially and otherwise able 


168 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


to resume any considerable activity in foreign mis- 
sion fields. 

Protestant missions and mission Boards have culti- 
vated international relations through cooperation, 
wherever possible. To be sure confessional and 
national differences cannot be ignored, but when 
denominational and national differences relate merely 
to forms, ceremonies or church government, they sink 
into comparative insignificance in the face of the 
stupendous task of world evangelization. 

International Missionary Council.—Undoubtedly 
the clearest demonstration of the essential unity of 
the foreign mission enterprise since the days of the 
apostles was given at the World Missionary Confer- 
ence in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1910. Delegates from 
practically all Protestant missionary societies and 
boards in Europe and America, and representatives 
of native Christian Churches in every large mission 
area, met in convention to discuss the common mis- 
sionary problems of the day. A Continuation Com- 
mittee of that Conference sought to conserve its 
values and did so until the war broke out. After the 
war, in 1920, through the efforts of the National Mis- 
sionary Conferences of Great Britain and North 
America, international relations were renewed 
through a Conference of delegates at Crans, Switzer- 
land, which led to the organization of the Inter- 
national Missionary Council, whose first meeting was 
held at Lake Mohonk, New York, in 1921, and whose 
second meeting was held in August, 1923, at Oxford, 
England. After a period of hesitation the German 
societies sent two delegates to the Oxford meeting. 


INTERNATIONAL FORCES 169 


The national organizations now represented in this 
Council are those of Australia, China, Denmark, Fin- 
land, France, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, India, 
Japan, Netherlands, North America, SURE South 
Africa, Sweden and Switzerland. 

The subjects discussed at the Oxford meeting in- 
cluded many of the outstanding questions in the mis- 
sion field today: race movements; the relationship of 
Church and mission; the nature of Christian educa- 
tion; Moslem fields; German missions; the freedom 
of missionaries and their work; the admission of 
American negroes as missionaries into Africa; the 
place of women in the Church and the mission on the 
field; Christian literature; cooperation against the 
menace to all nations of the increasing use of nar- 
cotic and exciting drugs. 

The Council is no super-society that can itself carry 
out any policy or initiate changes in the mission field. 
Executive power lies still, as it always has lain, with 
the boards and committees of the several churches 
and societies; but the Council brings to each board 
and committee the thoughts and affirmations of a 
body representing the Protestant missions of all the 
world. 

The Council at its Oxford meeting gave unanimous 
approval to the following statement: “The Inter- 
national Council has never sought nor is it its func- 
tion to work out a body of doctrinal opinions of its 
own. The only doctrinal opinions in the Council are 
those which the various members bring with them 
into it from the churches and missionary boards to 


170 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


which they belong. It is not part of the duty of the 
Council to discuss the merits of these opinions, still 
less to determine doctrinal questions. But it has 
never been found in practice that in consequence of 
this the Council is left with an uncertain mass of con- 
flicting opinions. The Council is conscious of a great 
measure of agreement which centers in a common 
obligation and a common loyalty. We are conscious 
of a common obligation to proclaim the Gospel of 
Christ in all the world, and this sense of obligation is 
made rich and deep because of our sense of the havoc 
wrought by sin and of the efficacy of the salvation 
offered by Christ. We are bound together, further, 
by a common loyalty to Jesus Himself, and this loyalty 
is deep and fruitful because we rejoice to share the 
confessions of St. Peter: “Thou art the Christ, the 
Son of the living God,’ and of St. Thomas: ‘My Lord 
and my God.’ The secret of our cooperation is the 
presence with us of Jesus Christ, human Friend and 
divine Helper. From this common obligation and 
this common loyalty flow many other points of agree- 
ment, and our differences in doctrine, great though 
in some instances they are, have not hindered us from 
profitable cooperation in counsel.” 

The International Missionary Council has succeeded 
in organizing National Christian Councils in China, 
gapan and India, composed, as already noted, of dele- 
gates of missions and representatives of native 
Churches. It remains to be seen whether the intro- 
duction of a large number of native Christian lead- 
ers into these national councils will cause individual 
missions to try similar experiments as the best solu- 


INTERNATIONAL FORCES 171 


tion of the relation of the organized mission to the 
native Church in the mission field. 

One of the significant results of the Edinburgh 
Conference was the appointment of a permanent 
secretaryship, which has been continued by the Inter- 
national Missionary Council. The duties of the secre- 
taries of the Council relate primarily to the cultiva- 
tion of effective and amicable international mission- 
ary relationships. It must be said to the credit of the 
secretaries, that they have been sympathetic and help- 
ful factors in the strengthening or in the renewal of 
the fellowship of international missionary interests 
and programs.’ 

Another result, which has been preserved in un- 
broken continuity since the days of Edinburgh and 
which promises to become move influential with the 
years, is the publication of the International Mis- 
sionary Review, a quarterly of scientific and technical 
missionary information and discussion, undoubtedly 
the foremost missionary magazine in the world. 

National Missionary Conference.—Back of the 
International Missionary Council stand the national 
organizations, especially The Foreign Missions Con- 
ference of North America and the Conference of Mis- 
sionary Societies in Great Britain and Ireland. Prac- 
tically every Protestant foreign missionary board and 
society in the Anglo-Saxon world holds membership 
in one of these two conferences. They are very help- 
ful and stimulating associations of foreign mission 


1One of the purposes of the formation of the International Mjssionary 
Council is “to help to co-ordinate the activities of the national missionary 
organizations of the different countries and of the societies they represent, 
and to bring about united action where necessary in missionary matters,” 


172 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


Board administrators and officers, who meet annually 
to discuss foreign mission problems and activities. 
It is distinctly understood that confessional differ- 
ences are a matter of conscience and are not to be 
brought into discussion. Cooperative effort is under- 
taken only when and where the Boards themselves 
desire it. One of the secretaries of our Board, Dr. 
L. B. Wolf, is a member of the International Mission- 
ary Council, and the other, Dr. George Drach, is a 
member of the Committee of Reference and Counsel, 
which acts as the ad interim executive committee of 
the Foreign Missions Conference. 

Our Lutheran boards and societies everywhere and 
always carefully guard their confessional position. It 
is generally understood that Lutherans cannot join 
in such enterprises, for example, as theological semi- 
naries. Our Board has found it to be expedient and 
advantageous, however, to unite with others in the 
support and conduct of several intermission educa- 
tional institutions, such as the Christian College for 
Women in Madras, the Medical School for Women 
in Vellore, the proposed United Christian College for 
the Telugu area, and schools for the education of mis- 
sionaries’ children at Kodaikanal, India, and Kobe, 
Japan. 

Lutheran Foreign Missions Conference.—For us as 
Lutherans in America a most happy and promising de- 
velopment of the national and international cultiva- 
tion of our common missionary interests lies in the 
organization of The Lutheran Foreign Missions Con- 
ference, in which the Lutheran foreign mission 
boards of America are associated. This conference 


INTERNATIONAL FORCES ‘173 


is paving the way for a better appreciation of the 
task of our American Lutheran Church as a whole 
in the conquest of the world for Christ. The total 
annual expenditure of the entire Lutheran Church in 
America for foreign missions is about $2,000,000, in- 
cluding what the National Lutheran Council appro- 
priates for the preservation of German and Finnish 
Lutheran Missions. 


German Missions Transferred.—The war time and 
post-war needs of the former German Lutheran mis- 
sions were provided largely by American Lutherans. 
As a result contributions for foreign missions in our 
Church have greatly increased and our missionary 
outlook has become practically world-wide. Besides 
the missions for whose financial support the National 
Lutheran Council is providing, a number have been 
transferred in whole or in part to American Lutheran 
Boards. The New Guinea mission of the Neuendettel- 
sau society has become the mission of the Iowa Synod, 
the India mission of the Hermannsburg society has 
been transferred to the Joint Synod of Ohio, a part of 
the Tanganyika mission of the Leipsic society in East 
Africa is under the care and control of the Augustana 
Synod, the United Lutheran Church has purchased the 
Shantung Mission in China from the Berlin society, 
the India mission of the Schleswig-Holstein society 
has been added to the field of our United Lutheran 
Church in that land. Parts of these fields, however, 
may be returned to the German societies when the 
way opens. The help of our American Lutheran 
Church and the gratitude of the German societies 
have greatly strengthened the bonds of love and fel- 


174 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


lowship, and increased the consciousness of Lutheran 
solidarity throughout the world. One of the prob- 
lems under discussion at the Lutheran World Conven- 
tion at Eisenach, Germany, in August, 1923, was that 
of the future correlation of Lutheran missions in all 
parts of the world. 


American Lutheran Foreign Missions.—Our Ameri- 
ean Lutheran Church has entered a new era of world- 
wide missionary effort. A list of the missions already 
conducted by it, twenty-two in number, includes fields 
in India, China, Japan, New Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, 
Madagascar, Tanganyika, Kurdistan, South America, 
North America. 


We cannot count on the Evropean societies for years 
to come to assume any considerable part in the Chris- 
tianization of the non-Christian world. The great 
powers of the European continent are bankrupt and 
broken. The Lutheran churches of European lands 
are hopelessly crippled and impotent. God is now 
calling on the Lutheran churches in America to lead 
World Lutheranism in the task of foreign missions. 
Hitherto our American Lutheran churches have been 
too provincial in their outlook. There are certain ex- 
tenuating circumstances for their past emphasis on 
home interests. Now the day has come for a world- 
wide interest and a world-wide outlook. Parallel with 
the international influence of our American idealism 
must proceed the energy of the Christian forces of 
our land for the Christianization of the world.. 

A Call to World-wide Service—Our Lutheran 
Church in America dare not neglect her mandate 
from Christ, Whose she is and Whom she serves. 


INTERNATIONAL FORCES 175 


God is giving her, three million strong, the opportun- 
ity to undertake great things for Him, the true God, 
and for Jesus Christ, Whom He sent to be the Re- 
deemer of the world. Let every pastor in our Church 
See to it that the foreign mission enterprise now has 
its rightful place in the program of his congregation. 
Let every congregation cultivate a world-wide out- 
look. Let everyone in our Church include the whole 
world in his prayer and intercessions. Let every 
American Lutheran now make a personal investment 
as a life policy in the business of winning the non- 
Christian world for Christ. 

High up on the walls of an ancient mosque in Da- 
mascus, which once was a Christian church, there re- 
mains to this day the inscription in Greek: “Thy 
kingdom, O Christ, is an everlasting kingdom, and 
Thy dominion endureth throughout all generations.” 

We believe that prophecy. Each one of us, in His 
service, must help to make it true. 


QUESTIONS 
International Forces 


. What questions are involved in the relations of missions to 
governments? 

- What rights of Christian missions have been recognized in 
the mandates of the European powers? 

- Mention two axioms of mission policy in relation to gov- 
ernments. 

. Through what organization do nearly all Protestant for- 
eign mission boards and societies function in international 
relations? 

- Give the names of several intermission schools in which 
our Board and the Women’s Missionary Society cooperate. 

- In what organization are American Lutheran Foreign Mis- 
sion Boards federated? 

- In what non-Christian lands are American Lutheran foreign 
missions conducted? 

. Why must the American Lutheran Church now assume the 
leadership of World Lutheranism in foreign missions? 


— 0 DD 


OI Ce Or 


SUGGESTED BOOKS FOR AUXILIARY 
READING 


GENERAL 


Mission Studies. Edward Pfeiffer. 1912. Lutheran Book Con- 
cern, Columbus, Ohio. $2.50. 


Non-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS 


The Religions of Mankind. Edmund Davison Soper. 1921. The 
Abingdon Press, New York. $2.50. 


GENERAL STUDY BOOKS 


India on the March. Alden H. Clark. 1922. Missionary Edu- 
cation Movement, New York. $.75. 

Building With India. Daniel J. Fleming. 1922. Missionary 
Education Movement, New York. $.75. 

Japan on the Upward Trail. William Axling. 1923. Mission- 
ary Education Movement, New York. $.75. 

Creative Forces in Japan. Galen M. Fisher. 1923. Missionary 
Education Movement, New York. $.75. 

China’s Challenge to Christianity. Lucius Porter. 1924. Mis- 
sionary Education Movement, New York. $.75. 

China’s Real Revolution. Paul Hutchinson. 1924. Missionary 
Education Movement, New York. $.75. 

Suggestions to Leaders. 15c. 

Wall Maps and Other Helps of the Missionary Education Move- 
ment. 


Retail orders for these books and helps should be sent to 
the Lutheran Literature Headquarters, Muhlenberg Building, 
1228 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, Penna. 


OuR MISSION FIELDS 


The Historical Series of the Women’s Missionary Society of the 
United Lutheran Church in America. Literature Head- 
quarters, Muhlenberg Building, 1228 Spruce Street, Phila- 
delphia, Pa. Each booklet 15c. 

Wall Maps of India and Africa, wall size blueprints, 35 x 44 
inches. Each map 60c, postage 10c extra. Literature 
Headquarters, Muhlenberg Building, 1228 Spruce Street, 
Philadelphia, Penna. 


176 


SUGGESTED BOOKS FOR AUXILIARY READING 177 


Wall Maps of the Guntur and Rajahmundry Fields, India 
Mission. Sent free for stamps to cover postage. The 
Lutheran Foreign Missions House, 18 East Mt. Vernon 
Place, Baltimore, Md. : 

Six Years in Hammock Land. Our British Guiana Mission 
Field. Ralph J. White. 1923. The United Lutheran Pub- 
lication House, Philadelphia, Pa. $1.20. 

The Telugu Mission. George Drach and C. F. Kuder. 1914. 
United Lutheran Publication House, Philadelphia, Pa. $.75. 

Missionary Heroes of the Lutheran Church. L. B. Wolf. 1914. 
United Lutheran Publication House, Philadelphia, Pa. $1.00. 

After Fifty Years. L. B. Wolf. 1896. United Lutheran Publi- 
cation House, Philadelphia, Pa. (Out of print.) 


SUGGESTIONS TO LEADERS OF STUDY 
CLASSES USING ‘ FORCES IN 
FOREIGN MISSIONS” 


In the use of this book in study classes the leader of the class 
should plan each class session so that each member actively 
participates in the discussion during each session. The dis- 
cussions should be guided by the leader to worth-while con- 
clusions. 

The leader first should read the book as a whole. Then he 
should re-read and outline each chapter. This outline should 
include for each chapter: 

1. Outstanding facts or truths to be learned by the class. 

2. Problems or subjects for class discussions. 

8. Conclusions reached or suggested by the author toward 
or away from which the class is to be led. 

Conclusions should not be forced on the class by the leader, 
but the members of the group should be led toward them by 
independent thinking. 

Subjects for short papers or brief discussion should be 
assigned in advance. 

The questions at the close of each chapter may be asked and 
answered at the close of each session, or, better yet, may be 
used as review questions at the beginning of the succeeding 
session. 

Questions for class discussion should be dictated to the class. 

To the books suggested for collateral reading the leader 
should add for his own use and for use in the class the 
Annual Report of the Foreign Missions of the United Lutheran 
Church, and copies of the magazines published by the Board 
and the Women’s Missionary Society: The Foreign Missionary 
and Lutheran Woman’s Work. Special articles in The Lutheran 
and The Missionary Review of the World also may _ prove 
helpful. 

Each session should begin with a hymn, the reading of a 


178 


SUGGESTIONS TO LEADERS OF STUDY CLASSES _ 179 


passage of Holy Scripture in unison or responsively, and prayer. 
The session may close with prayer, the Lord’s Prayer and a 
hymn. The Bible references given in Chapters I and II will 
suggest suitable Scripture passages. 

The aim of the entire course and of each session may be 
written on a blackboard as follows: 

Aim of the Entire Course: To determine the opportunity 
of the United Lutheran Foreign Mission Work in this Period of 
World Reconstruction. 

Aim of Chapter I: To show that the fundamental principles 
of Foreign Missions are taught in the Old and New Testaments. 

Chapter II: To appreciate the function of the foreign mis- 
sionary as the personal human force in foreign missions. 

Chapter III: To get an idea of the non-Christian forces in 
opposition to Christian missions. 

Chapter IV: To give a bird’s-eye-view of the foreign missions 
of the United Lutheran Church. 

Capter V: To see the relation of the organized mission to 
the Church in the mission field. 

Chapter VI: To understand the work of the Board of Foreign 
Missions as the Church’s agency for the administration of its 
foreign mission work, and to encourage intelligent missionary 
cooperation. 

Chapter VII: To observe the wider outlook of foreign mis- 
sions as an international force. 


ORGANIZATION MEETING 


The course contemplates a short organization meeting and 
seven regular weekly sessions. 

When the class has assembled for the organization meeting 
distribute the books. Make it clear to the class that it is not 
to be a lecture course, but a series of informal discussions of 
subjects of world-wide significance. Call upon the members 
of the class to participate in the class discussions with a 
maximum of freedom. 

Draw attention to the table of contents, which outlines the 
entire course and make suitable comments. 

Draw out a general discussion of the following subjects: 

1. What great forces of good and evil have had world-wide 


180 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 


influence? Commerce, industry, art, science, education, war, 
religion. 

2. Discuss Christianity as a supra-national, universal religion, 
knowing no boundaries of race or nationality. Draw attention 
here to the world-wide extent of the Lutheran Church. See 
August 16, 1923, issue of The Lutheran. 

3. Discuss the place of foreign missions in the activity of 
the Church as related to home missions (church extension at 
home) and inner missions (serving love). 

4. Get members of the class to state what the congregation 
with its school and societies is doing for foreign missions. 

5. Discuss the aim of the entire course as written on the 
blackboard. 

6. Urge each member to read and study the first chapter, 
looking up all Bible references. 

7. Assign subjects for short papers or discussions at each 
session. 

8. Dictate questions on Chapter I for the thought and study 
of each member during the week to be discussed in class. 

The success of the class will depend on the leader. The 
results of the study should lead each member of the class to 
find his place and his part in the foreign missionary enterprise. 


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